Fitzgerald

Even in its incomplete form, The Love of The Last Tycoon: A Western has achieved a reputation as the best Hollywood novel. When F. Scott Fitzgerald died in 1940 he had written seventeen of thirty projected episodes. In 1941 the "unfinished novel" was published in a text for general readers by Edmund Wilson under the title The Last Tycoon. For more than fifty years that edition, which disguises the state of Fitzgerald's work in progress, has been the only one available. This critical edition of The Love of The Last Tycoon utilizes Fitzgerald's manuscript drafts, revised typescripts, and working notes to establish the first authoritative text of the brilliant work in progress. The volume includes a detailed history of the gestation, composition, and publication of the novel; an explanation of editorial principles; full textual apparatus with editorial notes; facsimiles of the drafts; and explanatory notes on topical allusions and historical references for contemporary readers. The reconstruction of Fitzgerald's intentions for the thirteen unwritten episodes is particularly useful. F. Scott Fitzgerald's incomplete masterpiece is accurately restored to its 1940 state (with editorial emendation of non-functional errors) and thus made fully accessible to a cross-section of readers.