Sold – Fitzgerald Writes His Mother of His Happiness As He Leaves for Rome to Finish the Great Gatsby

In 1920, a 24-year-old F. Scott Fitzgerald published his debut novel, This Side of Paradise, which made him famous almost overnight.  A week later he married Zelda in New York. They immediately embarked on an extravagant lifestyle as young celebrities, and their life seemed like a never ending party at their home in Great Neck, Long Island. It was this lifestyle, woven into his published work, that tied him so thoroughly to the spirit of the Roaring Twenties and the “Jazz Age.”  He came to embody a generation and is considered one of the great American authors of the era.

This environment, however, would prove trying for the couple, particularly after Zelda gave birth to their only child, Frances Scott “Scottie” Fitzgerald in 1922.  Their interactions with society provided the setting and mood for the novel germinating in Fitzgerald’s head.  But Fitzgerald, laboring to complete a novel that would evolve into Gatsby, found too many distractions and debts that needed paying.  He wrote short stories to make money, a practice he would later deride. 

In the early Spring of 1924, to find space and time for his writing, the Fitzgerald family headed to Europe, where they would live primarily in France.  This time in Europe would give Scott the opportunity to assimilate the many influences on his life to date into his most famous work.  On October 27, 1924, from France, he finished a draft of The Great Gatsby and sent it to his publisher.  Immediately he took his family to Rome, driving there from France, going from town to town; a trip, he said, sustained by “real Italian food.”  His time in Rome was formative for work and his reputation, as there he created the final draft of Gatsby.  His later novel, Tender is the Night, incorporates many of his experiences in Rome as well.  As the essay “F. Scott Fitzgerald and Rome” notes, “This Roman winter was of remarkable importance in his career… Rome brought about a successful revision of The Great Gatsby, a renewed relationship with Henry James’s work, and the seed of Tender is the Night.”

Scott’s relationship with his mother was close.  She was doting and they corresponded famously.  On the eve of this portentous trip to Rome, he wrote to alert her, console her, and let her know how to reach him. Autograph Letter Signed, on a postcard he created from a photo taken of his family, from Southern France and bearing the vestiges of the French stamps and the notation “Carte Postale, undated but late October 1924, to Mrs. Fitzgerald. “Dear Mother, All goes well. Our address after Nov 1st will be care Guaranty Trust Co., Paris, who will forward mail to Rome. Love, Scott.” The address lines are also in Scott’s hand, where he has addressed his mother as “Mrs. Edward Fitzgerald.”  We acquired this letter directly from the Fitzgerald descendants and it has never before been offered for sale.

During this period, it was common for people to use their own family photos as postcards, and this is the case here.  The front of the postcard is a beautiful photograph of the Fitzgerald family – Scott, Zelda and Scottie, and their nanny.  He wrote the Photograph Inscribed to his mother: “This is the sun, not melancholy.” He has drawn an arrow to his own head, indicating his own happiness.  Therefore, this is both an inscribed photograph and a signed letter to his mother.  This is the only example of his famous correspondence with his mother we have found ever offered for sale. Moreover, public records for the past 30 years show no Fitzgerald letters from Italy or relating to his trip there in 1924. 

The inscription itself has great import, paraphrasing one of Fitzgerald’s most famous lines to Zelda and showing the romantic side of the author.  He once wrote her of his dream to be buried “snuggled up” in a graveyard, “not melancholy at all.”