Tender Is the Night is the fourth and final novel completed by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. Set in French Riviera during the twilight of the Jazz Age, the 1934 novel chronicles the rise and fall of Dick Diver, a promising young psychiatrist, and his wife, Nicole, who is one of his patients.
Working with the complete collection of Tender is the Night manuscripts in the Princeton University Library, Matthew J. Bruccoli reconstructs seventeen drafts and three versions of the novel to answer questions about F. Scott Fitzgerald's major work that have long puzzled critics of modern literature. In 1934, nine years after the appearance of The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald permitted publication of Tender is the Night. Disappointed by its critical reception, Fitzgerald suggested that the structure of the novel should be drastically rearranged. In 1951, eleven years after his death, Charles Scribner's Sons brought out an edition that incorporated Fitzgerald's changes. Controversy arose over the merits of the two published versions and over the "nine lost years" in Fitzgerald's life between his two great novels, years of rewriting before publication of Tender is the Night that resulted in six cartons of notes and drafts. After analyzing this wealth of material, Bruccoli reconstructs every working stage in the novel and reaches his own conclusions about which edition is the most valid.
F. Scott Fitzgerald's final completed novel, Tender is the Night, published in 1934 but written during the previous decade, is a quintessentially decadent story of Americans abroad in the Jazz Age. In this accessible collection of essays, an impressive congregation of North American and European scholars presents eleven new readings of this widely studied book. The list of noteworthy contributors, including the general editor of the Cambridge Edition of the Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald and the editors of the F. Scott Fitzgerald Review, makes this volume required reading for Fitzgerald scholars and fans.
Tender is the Night is a story set in the hedonistic high society of Europe during the 'Roaring Twenties'. A wealthy schizophrenic, Nicole Warren, falls in love with Dick Diver - her psychiatrist. The resulting saga of the Divers' troubled marriage, and their circle of friends, includes a cast of aristocratic and beautiful people, unhappy love affairs, a duel, incest, and the problems inherent in the possession of great wealth. Despite cataloging a maelstrom of interpersonal conflict, Tender is the Night has a poignancy and warmth that springs from the quality of Fitzgerald's writing and the tragic personal experiences on which the novel is based.
Publisher Description (unedited publisher data) Eleven specially-commissioned essays by major Fitzgerald scholars present a clearly written and comprehensive assessment of F. Scott Fitzgerald as a writer and as a public and private figure. No aspect of his career is overlooked, from his first novel published in 1920, through his more than 170 short stories, to his last unfinished Hollywood novel. Contributions present the reader with a full and accessible picture of the background of American social and cultural change in the early decades of the twentieth century. The introduction traces Fitzgerald's career as a literary and public figure, and examines the extent to which public recognition has affected his reputation among scholars, critics, and general readers over the past sixty years. This is the only volume that offers undergraduates, graduates and general readers a full account of Fitzgerald's work as well as suggestions for further exploration of his work. Library of Congress subject headings for this publication: Fitzgerald, F, Scott (Francis Scott), 1896-1940 Criticism and interpretation Handbooks, manuals, etc.
A story of Americans living on the French Riviera in the 1930s is a portrait of psychological disintegration as a wealthy couple supports friends and hangers-on financially and emotionally at the cost of their own stability.
F. Scott Fitzgerald began composing Tender Is the Night in the summer of 1925, but he struggled with the novel and reworked it intensively over the next nine years. A study of the disintegration of a talented young American psychiatrist, set among wealthy American expatriates living in Europe after the First World War, the novel, finally published in 1934, is now considered one of his major works. Fitzgerald saved a great many of his working materials - notes, diagrams, holographs, typescripts, proofs and correspondence - making it possible to reconstruct in detail the passage of Tender Is the Night from manuscript to print. The Cambridge edition follows the order of the first edition; it includes a history of composition, an analysis of Fitzgerald's plan for republication and an explanation of the chronology of the narrative. The edition also contains full historical annotations, facsimiles of surviving drafts and a record of emendations.
A collection of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s remarks on his craft, taken from his works and letters to friends and colleagues—an essential trove of advice for aspiring writers. As F. Scott Fitzgerald famously decreed, “An author ought to write for the youth of his own generation, the critics of the next, and the schoolmasters of ever after.” Fitzgerald's own work has gone on to be reviewed and discussed for over one hundred years. His masterpiece The Great Gatsby brims with the passion and opulence that characterized the Jazz Age—a term Fitzgerald himself coined. These themes also characterized his life: Fitzgerald enlisted in the US army during World War I, leading him to meet his future wife, Zelda, while stationed in Alabama. Later, along with Ernest Hemingway and other American artist expats, he became part of the “Lost Generation” in Europe. Fitzgerald wrote books “to satisfy [his] own craving for a certain type of novel,” leading to modern American classics including Tender Is the Night, This Side of Paradise, The Beautiful and Damned. In this collection of excerpts from his books, articles, and personal letters to friends and peers, Fitzgerald illustrates the life of the writer in a timeless way.