The Bloomsbury Handbook to F. Scott Fitzgerald

by Laura Rattray (Editor), Linda Wagner-Martin (Editor)

Overview

Bringing together leading voices from across the globe, The Bloomsbury Handbook to F. Scott Fitzgerald presents state-of-the-art scholarship on the renowned Jazz Age writer, as well as offering an approachable overview of his background, influences, and cultural context.

This comprehensive volume features:

- A variety of national and transnational perspectives
- Essays which consider Fitzgerald's work via key contemporary approaches such as race studies, whiteness studies, queer studies, the digital humanities, literary geography, and ecocriticism
- New comparative approaches that consider the author in the context of his contemporaries, including writers of the Harlem Renaissance and modernism
- An innovative cluster of short essays by practitioners, reflecting on their work with Fitzgerald materials

Offering an indispensable resource for researchers and students alike, this handbook brings together the most exciting scholarship one a true giant of American literature.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781350429635
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	02/20/2025
Series:	Bloomsbury Handbooks
Pages:	464
Product dimensions:	6.69(w) x 9.61(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Laura Rattray is Reader in American Literature at the University of Glasgow, UK.

Linda Wagner-Martin is Frank Borden Hanes Professor of English and Comparative Literature at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA. She was the 2011 recipient of the Hubbell Medal for lifetime service in American literature (sponsored by the MLA), and has received the Guggenheim fellowship, the senior National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship, the Bunting Institute fellowship, and awards from the Rockefeller Foundation, the American Philosophical Association and others. She has published more than eighty-five books of criticism, some edited, including Sylvia Plath: A Biography (1987) and “Favored Strangers”: Gertrude Stein and Her Family (1995), as well as studies of Ernest Hemingway, Zelda Fitzgerald, Barbara Kingsolver, and others. Recent books are A History of American Literature from 1950 to the Present (2013) and Toni Morrison and the Maternal (2014).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Preface Essays:
“My Life with Fitzgerald”, Jackson R. Bryer
“Two Tickets to West Egg: The Rise and Range of Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald Tourism”, Kirk Curnutt

Introduction, Laura Rattray and Linda Wagner-Martin

Part I: Fitzgerald and His Culture
“Fitzgerald, Modernism, and Race”, Justine Baillie
“F. Scott Fitzgerald and the Harlem Renaissance”, Michael Nowlin
“Scott's America, in Black and White: F. Scott Fitzgerald and Race Matters”, Marc K. Dudley
“Unconscious Projects and Ethnic Prejudices in 'Indecision'”, J. Gerald Kennedy
“'From one childhood to another:' The Queer Failure of Fitzgerald'sCurious Cases”, H. J. E. Champion
“'All the iridescence of the beginning of the world': Fitzgerald's Post-War New York”, Alice Kelly
“My Bud, Dud: War Trauma and Male Friendship in The Great Gatsby”, Michael Von Cannon
“F. Scott Fitzgerald Reading Women Writers”, Jade Broughton Adams
“Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald and the Question of Artistic Indebtedness: The Early Years”, Gail D. Sinclair

PART II: Novels
“'Experience is the name so many people give to their mistakes': A Narratological Reappraisal of F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise and The Beautiful and Damned”, Marie-Agnès Gay
“Some Vague Top of the World: Princeton University, Affluence, and This Side of Paradise”, Ahmed Honeini
“From Paradise to the Damned”, Walter Raubicheck
“Fitzgerald's 'Forgotten' Naturalism and Movie Culture: The Beautiful and Damned and Tender Is the Night, Donna M. Campbell
“Fitzgerald and the Hollywood Novel Revisited”, Kari Sund
“A Darker Shade of Green: The Great Gatsby and Fossil Fuel Capital”, Niklas Salmose
“Fitzgerald/Hemingway: The Great Gatsby and The Sun Also Rises”, William Cain
“Between Mimesis and Fiction: Very Special Effects in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Love of the Last Tycoon”, Pascale Antolin

PART III: Neglected Genres
“Fitzgerald's Nonfiction”, James L. W. West III
“F. Scott Fitzgerald's Early Playwriting”, Laura Rattray
“'Indispensable Rhythm': Scott Fitzgerald's Poetic Entanglements”, Agata Handley
“F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald's Restless Traveling or Their Own Version of Henry James's 'globe […] shrinking […] to the size of an orange'”, Elisabeth Bouzonviller
“'The Cruise of the Rolling Junk': Scott and Zelda's forgotten road trip”, Mark C. Taylor

Part IV: Short Stories
“'Somewhat Unpleasant': 'May Day,' Literary Failure, and the Modernist Short Story as Crisis”, Michael J. Collins
“'Once More the Belt is Tight:' The Rise and Fall of Fitzgerald's Career at the Saturday Evening Post”, Jennifer Nolan
“Two Perspectives on Fitzgerald's 'The Rich Boy'”, Bryant Mangum
“The Socratic Structure of Fitzgerald's 'Ice Palace'”, James Plath
'The Boring, Roaring Twenties': The Politics of Boredom in Fitzgerald's “Bernice Bobs Her Hair” and Other Stories”, Thomas Fahy
“'Boats against the Current:' Being(s) in transit in 'The Love Boat' and 'The Rough Crossing'”, Catherine Delesalle-Nancey

Part V: Teaching and Adaptation
“'Who is this Gatsby anyhow?' (Some Phenomenological Reflections)”, Andrew Scheiber
“Teaching The Great Gatsby with When Washington Was in Vogue”, Leslie Elaine Frost
“'Very Distinctly Not Modern'”: Teaching 'The Crack-Up' Alongside 'Babylon Revisited'”, Catherine.Seltzer
“'Bernice Bobs Her Hair' is Not About Barbering: What F. Scott Fitzgerald Can Contribute to Outcomes-Based Education, Sara Kosiba
“Devotedly, With Dearest Love: Bringing the Letters of Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald to the Stage”, Lorrie Kyle

List of Contributors
Index

Editorial Reviews

Edited by world-leading scholars in American literature, this handbook provides some vital new research approaches to understanding Fitzgerald's body of work, and it balances those developments with more general overviews of Fitzgerald's background, influences, and cultural contexts.” —William Blažek, Emeritus Professor of English, Liverpool Hope University, UK

“This beautifully curated collection of essays on F. Scott Fitzgerald illuminates not just the writerly brilliance of one of America's most eminent writers but also the importance of literary scholarship. It's a gem.” —Cathy N. Davidson, Distinguished Professor of English, City University of New York, USA

“The Bloomsbury Handbook to F. Scott Fitzgerald offers new and engaging ways of thinking about Fitzgerald through a range of critical and contextual lenses, making a positive and ongoing contribution to the development of the field. This handbook compiles new looks at Fitzgerald's work, his legacy, and our reconsideration of him in light of more contemporary social and political questions.” —Philip McGowan, Professor of English, Queen's University Belfast, UK

“This handbook is a welcome addition to Fitzgerald studies that will benefit academics and aficionados alike. Editors Laura Rattray and Linda Wagner-Martin have gathered an impressive array of scholars to explore the complexities of Fitzgerald's influences, life, and work.” —Erin E. Templeton, Professor of English, Converse University, USA

“Students looking for insight and possible entry points into the works, as well as literary scholars wanting to survey the thinking of their colleagues, will find plenty to consider here.” —Library Journal

From the Publisher