F. Scott Fitzgerald Creates a List of 22 Essential Books, 1936

fitzgerald_reading_list
In 1936 — per­haps the dark­est year of his life — F. Scott Fitzger­ald was con­va­lesc­ing in a hotel in Asheville, North Car­oli­na, when he offered his nurse a list of 22 books he thought were essen­tial read­ing. The list, above, is writ­ten in the nurse’s hand.

Fitzger­ald had moved into Asheville’s Grove Park Inn that April after trans­fer­ring his wife Zel­da, a psy­chi­atric patient, to near­by High­land Hos­pi­tal. It was the same month that Esquire pub­lished his essay “The Crack Up”, in which he con­fessed to a grow­ing aware­ness that “my life had been a draw­ing on resources that I did not pos­sess, that I had been mort­gag­ing myself phys­i­cal­ly and spir­i­tu­al­ly up to the hilt.”

Fitzger­ald’s finan­cial and drink­ing prob­lems had reached a crit­i­cal stage. That sum­mer he frac­tured his shoul­der while div­ing into the hotel swim­ming pool, and some­time lat­er, accord­ing to Michael Cody at the Uni­ver­si­ty of South Car­oli­na’s Fitzger­ald Web site, “he fired a revolver in a sui­cide threat, after which the hotel refused to let him stay with­out a nurse. He was attend­ed there­after by Dorothy Richard­son, whose chief duties were to pro­vide him com­pa­ny and try to keep him from drink­ing too much. In typ­i­cal Fitzger­ald fash­ion, he devel­oped a friend­ship with Miss Richard­son and attempt­ed to edu­cate her by pro­vid­ing her with a read­ing list.”

It’s an curi­ous list. Shake­speare is omit­ted. So is James Joyce. But Nor­man Dou­glas and Arnold Ben­nett make the cut. Fitzger­ald appears to have restrict­ed his selec­tions to books that were avail­able at that time in Mod­ern Library edi­tions. At the top of the page, Richard­son writes “These are books that Scott thought should be required read­ing.”

Note: We have pro­vid­ed links to texts avail­able online. Most appear in our col­lec­tion, 600 Free eBooks: Down­load to Kin­dle, iPad/iPhone & Nook. Cours­es on Fitzger­ald and con­tem­po­raries can be found in the Lit­er­a­ture sec­tion of our Free Online Cours­es col­lec­tion.

via The Uni­ver­si­ty of South Car­oli­na

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Ernest Hem­ing­way Cre­ates a Read­ing List for a Young Writer, 1934

Sev­en Tips From F. Scott Fitzger­ald on How to Write Fic­tion

Rare Footage of Scott and Zel­da Fitzger­ald From the 1920s


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Comments (11)
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  • arno says:

    this list out of drink­ing, .… i dont know showes a self lov­ing side

  • dora says:

    Sono fiera di aver let­to molti dei titoli con­sigliati!

  • diá»…n Ä‘Ă n seo says:

    oh! now I know this diá»…n Ä‘Ă n seo

  • Wendolyne says:

    I won­der. Did she read them?

  • ian says:

    I worked at Grove Park Inn. They actu­al­ly left the bul­let hole in the ceil­ing from his gun­shot. I’ve seen it.

  • GogogoStopSTOP says:

    Nine­teen thir­ty six! He should have been in NYC or Akron to hear Bill W & Dr Bob… such a short life for such a tal­ent­ed guy. And to think, he knew he was lack­ing in spir­i­tu­al­i­ty… he was right there, right on the precipice of prac­tic­ing what he need­ed to know to recov­er.

  • DeWitt Henry says:

    Grand Uncle Scott, spare me Dou­glas, Renan, Ben­nett, Ham­mett, Jes­sup, France, Wilde, and Dou­glas. Giv­en your vision, add Hem­ing­way, please, Thack­er­ay, and Joyce.

  • Paul Ottaviano says:

    Fitzger­ald was the Man!!! Inter­est­ing list!! Peo­ple have to under­stand, or at least I feel, that you should not read (no pun intend­ed) too much into these lists. Just enjoy the insight and infor­ma­tion. For fun tick off how many of the books you have read, and if you feel the need run out and read a cou­ple items if you want too. READ!!!!! READ EVERYTHING!!!!!!!!!!

  • david phillips says:

    my great aunt Nina Jory was report­ed as being a nurse with Scott Fitzger­ald. She cer­tain­ly took out Amer­i­can cit­i­zen­ship. Have you any infor­ma­tion on this sub­jet

  • SEOnumber1 says:

    Its a real­ly infor­ma­tive and com­pre­hen­sive post.
    Thanks for Shar­ing.
    You real­ly deserve an appre­ci­a­tion.

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