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  • Published: 1 April 1998
  • ISBN: 9780141180878
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 400
  • RRP: $34.00

The Beautiful and Damned




A reissue with a new introduction by Geoff Dyer

"We know the old adage about judging books by their covers, but how could you not when the covers are as lovely as these?" —Vogue (U.K.)

The jacket design by Coralie Bickford-Smith reflects the elegance and glamour of the Art Deco period paired with the modern aesthetic of mechanical repetition. Each jacket comes with a detachable bookmark.

Anthony and Gloria are the essence of Jazz Age glamour. A brilliant and magnetic couple, they fling themselves at life with an energy that is thrilling. New York is a playground where they dance and drink for days on end. Their marriage is a passionate theatrical performance; they are young, rich, alive and lovely and they intend to inherit the earth. But as money becomes tight, their marriage becomes impossible. And with their inheritance still distant, Anthony and Gloria must grow up and face reality; they may be beautiful but they are also damned.

  • Published: 1 April 1998
  • ISBN: 9780141180878
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 400
  • RRP: $34.00

About the author

F Scott Fitzgerald

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896 -1940) is widely considered the poet laureate of the Jazz Age. He wrote many short stories and four novels, This Side of Paradise, The Beautiful and the Damned, Tender is the Night and The Great Gatsby. An unfinished novel, The Last Tycoon, was published posthumously.

F. Scott Fitzgerald was born in 1896 in St Paul, Minnesota, and went to Princeton University, which he left in 1917 to join the army. He was said to have epitomized the Jazz Age, which he himself defined as 'a generation grown up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken'. In 1920 he married Zelda Sayre. Their traumatic marriage and her subsequent breakdowns became the leading influence on his writing. Among his publications were five novels, This Side of Paradise, The Great Gatsby, The Beautiful and the Damned, Tender is the Night and The Last Tycoon (his last and unfinished work); six volumes of short stories and The Crack Up, a selection of autobiographical pieces.

Fitzgerald died suddenly in 1940. After his death The New York Times said of him that 'He was better than he knew, for in fact and in the literary sense he invented a 'generation'. . . he might have interpreted and even guided them, as in their midle years they saw a different and nobler freedom threatened with destruction.'

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Praise for The Beautiful and Damned