This Side of Paradise. by Fitzgerald, F. Scott - 1920

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1920. First edition of Fitzgerald's first novel, with an initial printing of only 3,000 copies, which sold out in three days. Octavo, original cloth. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper with a full page inscription in the year of publication to James H. Douglas, a fellow member of the Princeton Cottage Club, "Under whose beneficent patronage I have spent a useless month, cheered only by seeing him sling pregnant words at impressionable sophomores. F. Scott Fitzgerald (the W.K. author), Cottage Club, Princeton, N.J. March 27th, 1920." In very good condition. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box. This Side of Paradise is the debut novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald. It takes its title from a line of Rupert Brooke's poem Tiare Tahiti, the book examines the lives and morality of post-World War I youth. The novel's hero, Amory Blaine, is a handsome, spoiled young man who attends Princeton, becomes involved in literary activities and has several ill-fated romances. A portrait of the Lost Generation, the novel addresses Fitzgerald's later theme of love distorted by social climbing and greed" (Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature). Fitzgerald was still at university when he submitted the manuscript, then titled The Romantic Egoist, to Charles Scribner, whom he had known at Princeton. It was published on 26 March 1920, was an immediate success, and launched Fitzgerald's literary career.