The Last Tycoon - (Scribner Classic) by F Scott Fitzgerald (Paperback)

About the Book

Fitzgerald's last novel, published posthumously in 1941, was edited by Edmund Wilson, who attempted to polish the work to make it appear less like a work in progress. This version of the acclaimed Cambridge Critical text draws on the manuscript and Fitzgerald's own working drafts, notes, revisions, and corrections.

Book Synopsis

*With a new introduction by bestselling and iconic novelist Haruki Murakami*

This edition of F. Scott Fitzgerald's final unfinished novel is now restored to the original 1941 text, with updates by Fitzgerald scholar James L. W. West III.

When F. Scott Fitzgerald died in 1940, he left behind an unfinished draft of this poignant novel, inspired by his own experience working in Hollywood as a screenwriter. Literary critic Edmund Wilson edited Fitzgerald's notes and material to publish this text of The Last Tycoon in 1941. Now, this edition restores Wilson's editorial work and includes an introduction from celebrated author Haruki Murakami.

Set in Hollywood in the 1930s, The Last Tycoon tells the tragic story of a young film producer named Monroe Stahr. Exploring themes of ambition, power, and corruption, The Last Tycoon depicts Stahr's struggle to balance his personal life and professional goals with the challenges of running a successful movie studio. Based on the career of real-life producer Irving Thalberg, the head of MGM who was known as Hollywood's "boy wonder", The Last Tycoon is a sharply observed and bittersweet exposé of the glittering excess of the Hollywood film industry in its prime.

From the Back Cover

The Love of the Last Tycoon, edited by the preeminent Fitzgerald scholar Matthew J. Bruccoli, is a restoration of the author's phrases, words, and images that were excised from the 1940 edition, giving new luster to an unfinished literary masterpiece. It is the story of the young Hollywood mogul Monroe Stahr, who was inspired by the life of boy-genius Irving Thalberg, and is an expose of the studio system in its heyday. The Love of the Last Tycoon is now available for the first time in paperback.

Review Quotes

"Even more heartfelt, even more profound than I had previously thought... I found myself admiring, all over again, the maturity and power of Fitzgerald's writing." --Haruki Murakami

"The confident, almost serene excellence of this unfinished work speaks to a deeper stability in Fitzgerald... No one conjures love's longing like Fitzgerald could... shows Fitzgerald's talents in the best possible light." --Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal

About the Author

F. Scott Fitzgerald was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1896. He attended Princeton University, joined the United States Army during World War I, and published his first novel, This Side of Paradise, in 1920. That same year he married Zelda Sayre and for the next decade the couple lived in New York, Paris, and on the Riviera. Fitzgerald's novels include The Beautiful and Damned, The Great Gatsby, and Tender Is the Night. He died at the age of forty-four while working on The Last Tycoon. Fitzgerald's fiction has secured his reputation as one of the most important American writers of the twentieth century.