Lot 411
Fitzgerald, F. Scott (1896-1940) American author; chronicler of the Jazz Age. Autograph letter signed ("Scott Fitzg"), 2 pages, in pencil, 13 x 8½ in. [Hendersonville, N.C., 9 November 1935]. To Isabel Owens. With original holograph envelope. "The Post story was begun & dished as I'm not sending out another doubtful, thank you. I'd Die for You evidently hasn't sold yet, nor the radio idea (which of course will be slow). This money came from Esquire. I can't see coming back with the Post story unfinished & trying to do it with the inevitable storms breaking around. Everything was going well until the offspring of my Tryon friend arrived with the idea that I was playing fast and loose with Mama. My God! when he probably couldn't be sure who his own father is --…. I had to let this snippy Etonian kid (and they're trained to be snooty) - I had to let him sass me when I could have killed him, this time without beer openers!….All is well now but it cost me three days work." About 200 words. Very good condition.
Fitzgerald's Tryon friend was Nora Phipps Flynn, one of the famous Langhorne girls of Virginia, and a sister of Nancy Astor. Her husband, Lefty, had been a football star at Yale, and a Hollywood actor and stuntman. It was her Etonian son, Tommy, who provided Anthony Powell with the title for his novel A Question of Upbringing. Bruccoli notes in Some Kind of Epic Grandeur that "Fitzgerald's 1925 story, 'The Intimate Strangers,' was a thinly disguised account of the Flynns' marital histories."
Estimated Value $8,000 - 10,000.
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| Realized $5,760 |
