26 Mar 2022
On This Day
26 March Cheryl

26 March 1920: F. Scott Fitzgerald’s first book is published

F. Scott Fitzgerald & 'This Side of Paradise'

One of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s university classmates called This Side of Paradise “one of the most illiterate books of any merit ever published.” Edmund Wilson, a literary critic who had been a student with Fitzgerald, had little love for the book. Upon reading a typo-filled version, Wilson declared it “full of English words misused with the most reckless abandon.” [1]

American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald’s debut novel was This Side of Paradise, published on 26 March 1920. The novel takes its title from a line in Rupert Brooke’s poem Tiare Tahiti.

Fitzgerald began writing This Side of Paradise in 1917 when he was 21 years old and serving in WWI. He continued working on it over the next two years, even after being discharged in 1919.

The book is a semi-autobiographical account of Fitzgerald’s own experiences, telling the story of a young man from a wealthy family who is trying to find his place in the world. In it, Fitzgerald explores themes of love, ambition, and disillusionment, and examines the lives and morality of the carefree American youth at the dawn of the Jazz Age.

Within months of its publication, This Side of Paradise became a cultural sensation in the United States, and reviewers hailed the work as an amazing debut novel. The book sold out in the first three days and went through a series of subsequent printings over the next several months. Nearly 50,000 copies had been sold by the end of 1921, making it a huge best seller at the time.

It became especially popular among American college students, and F. Scott Fitzgerald became a household name overnight. His newfound fame enabled him to earn much higher rates for his short stories, and his improved financial prospects persuaded his reluctant fiancée Zelda Sayre to marry him one month later.