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38th out of 158 books
—
27 voters
Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda: The Love Letters of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald
Through his alcoholism and her mental illness, his career lows and her institutional confinement, F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald's devotion to each other endured for over twenty-two years. Now, for the first time, we have the story of their love in the couple's own letters. Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda consists of more than 75 percent previously unpublished or out-of-print let
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Paperback, 400 pages
Published
2003
by Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
(first published 1985)
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There is a blurb from Independent on Sunday on the back of my copy which sums up this book quite well: "Scott and Zelda's letters make it clear that both of them knew they had wasted their youth, beauty and early success. And both of them understood that they were bound together". They really do, the letters.
There is one bulk of letters from before the marriage of this famous couple, but the great bulk is from after Zelda's breakdown in 1930 when the couple for long periods were not living toget...more
There is one bulk of letters from before the marriage of this famous couple, but the great bulk is from after Zelda's breakdown in 1930 when the couple for long periods were not living toget...more
I have long loved F. Scott Fitzgerald. In my opinion, he may have been the greatest American author of the 20th century, as far as his prose is concerned. I never really admired his subject matter, however. It seemed self absorbed, and rather menial to me. I became fascinated with Fitzgerald, the person, when I was in college, when I read his letters, full of that same self absorption but infused with passion. Reading this rather new collection of letters, for me, was just a continuation of my s...more
As a lifelong fan of Fitzgerald, flappers and the 1920s in general, I've read pretty much everything Scott and Zelda wrote and am really interested in their personal history too.
I thought this book was fantastic; really well edited and well interspersed with biographical notes. Of course we all know the tragic Fitzgerald story but reading it from the inside, as it were, sheds a completely different light on things and forces you to rethink opinions on these two tragic characters who lived so pub...more
I thought this book was fantastic; really well edited and well interspersed with biographical notes. Of course we all know the tragic Fitzgerald story but reading it from the inside, as it were, sheds a completely different light on things and forces you to rethink opinions on these two tragic characters who lived so pub...more
This is a beautiful collection of letters, aided by helpful contextual notes from the editors. The book does a lot to challenge what I think has become an unfortunately pervasive misconception - that Scott drove Zelda to madness and belittled her creative talents. Through their own words to each other, rather than through the lenses of Hollywood & sensationalism, you see a tragic pair, each struggling with their own demons but surviving (for as long as they can) through the continued support...more
I am reading The Great Gatsby right now with my juniors, and before we read, we watched a video about Fitzgerald's life. The movie was old and a little out-of-date, so my students did not seem very interested. However, I found this book, and it is about Fitzgerald's life. The book contains letters that Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda wrote to one another throughout the course of their lives.
I have to say that this was much more exciting than the movie! The letters were so captivating and it showed...more
I have to say that this was much more exciting than the movie! The letters were so captivating and it showed...more
Great collection of letters. I've been a big Scott and Zelda fan since high school, and though I'd read their biographies and novels/stories, I'd never before read their letters. I'm so glad I did. Their letters made them come fully to life, and I feel like I have a better understanding of who they were as mere mortals. Most of the letters come from Zelda, and trace her transformation from a coy debutante to a mature, reflective woman struggling with mental illness and lack of freedom and mobili...more
I loved this. It was informative, endearing and ultimately heartbreaking. I am truly fascinated with the correspondences that occurred before phones were in every home or a cellphone in every pocket. It amazed me how through it all, Scott never stopped financially taking care of Zelda. I realize that they never formally ended their marriage but still, he did so much for her, even when they were apart for so long. You could see in some of Zelda's letters how her illness was changing her but I cou...more
Dec 07, 2007
Kirk
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
Scott and Zelda fanatics
Shelves:
essential-reference
This is the essential letters collection for the Fitzgerald's marriage. It is also provides the most balanced biography of the couple you will find. It neither portrays Zelda as a ditz (as Mizener and Turnbull did), nor does it try to redress the criticism (as Milford and other Zelda biographers do). Perhaps the most illuminating thing is how beautiful the correspondence was: always aware of how they mythologized themselves, S&Z knew they were writing for a future public, and their ornate, o...more
I'm a huge F.Scott fan, but after reading this book, I am equally a Zelda follower as well. In fact, reading through these letters, I came to find that I didn't like F.Scott the man so much, the writer, yes, the man, no. Zelda had an enormous influence over Fitzgerald and served not only as his muse, but his editor, creative director and support group all in one. Her story is a tragic one and a lot of his letters didn't survive, so the perspective of this book can be a bit skewed. Zelda was a be...more
May 29, 2008
Zach
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
biographies,
2008-books
Similar to other reviewers many of the letters are interesting and so well written to be poetic. However, there are so many letters and often the exchanges are one sided (or at least F. S. Fitzgerald's responses are not included in the book). Arguably some of the most interesting parts of the book are where the editor/author has provided detailed description of F. Scott/Zelda's life/history, this provided not only context for the letters but also background about their lives.
Someone with a bett...more
Someone with a bett...more
Heard about the party life style F. Scott and Zelda were leading during the twenties and want to find out more? This isn't the book. This is the next installment, where Zelda goes to a series of nuthouses and F. Scott becomes a self-destructive alcoholic. But their devotion and letters to each other are hauntingly romantic.
This also gives a great back-story for understanding where Fitzgerald's stories came from.
I'd also suggest reading this in conjunction with Hemingway's "A Moveable Feast," in...more
This also gives a great back-story for understanding where Fitzgerald's stories came from.
I'd also suggest reading this in conjunction with Hemingway's "A Moveable Feast," in...more
If you haven't fallen in love with Zelda after reading this I'm not sure what you're doing with your life.
This was beautiful and haunting and easily one of the best things I've ever read.
This was beautiful and haunting and easily one of the best things I've ever read.
Debbie and I just talked about this book last night. I've already read pieces of some of these letters in other biographies, and while the first part is wildly romantic (and, beautifully, inventively written - I wish I could write ONE letter so well), there are oceans of letters that are as depressing as all get out after the first, giddy, wild successful years of their marriage and their lives unraveled into real sadness, drunkeness, infidelity, etc. Not everything has to be happy, but this is...more
Very interesting.
Review to come!
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Read in one day!!!!! Loved it:)
Feb 01, 2011
carl theaker
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
history,
fancy-fiction
From the days when you wrote a letter like the world was going to
read it and when you kept every letter someone sent you as if you were
going to be famous. Ok these are from later in their lives when they
were at least celebrities of their era, which had already passed.
Does make you wonder if there will be such collections in the
future, 'The Collected Emails of Scott, with a special addition of
newly found Tweets of Zelda'.
Jul 25, 2008
Nicole Javvaji
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
fans of F. Scott Fitzgerald, romantics
Recommended to Nicole by:
Barnes and Noble
Shelves:
memoirs
So much can be learned from reading the private letters of these two talented writers. The collection of letters begins during courtship, continues through their rocky marriage and the sad decline of Scott into alcoholism and Zelda into mental collapse. The letters are full of emotion, people just don't write like this anymore! I feel like I really got to know both Fitzgeralds through this book.
Obviously a very personal insight into the lives of F Scott & Zelda. More of her letters to him have survived making this an slightly one sided story, despite the author's summary.
Would recommend reading this book after their individual biographies
Would recommend reading this book after their individual biographies
I only read the first section of this book - but it is a wonderful reference to his published novels. There are whole sections in Zelda's letters to Scott, that he took and put in This Side of Paradise.
Oh God I read this years ago on a long flight and saw myself a little bit in Zelda and it scared the crap outta me. Great book though-but tragic.
Since I am a huge Fitzgerald fan, I love reading any non-fiction about he and Zelda that I can get my hands on!
Talent drowns under materialistic quest.
Ugh these guys break my heart.
a great love story.
Jun 18, 2013
Merlyn
marked it as to-read
Jun 18, 2013
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is currently reading it
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Patsy Desautel
marked it as to-read
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Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald, born Zelda Sayre, was a novelist and the wife of writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. She was an icon of the 1920s—dubbed by her husband "the first American Flapper". After the success of his first novel This Side of Paradise (1920), the Fitzgeralds became celebrities. The newspapers of New York saw them as embodiments of the Jazz Age and the Roaring Twenties: young, rich, beautiful...more
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“I wish we could spend July by the sea, browning ourselves and feeling water-weighted hair flow behind us from a dive. I wish our gravest concerns were the summer gnats. I wish we were hungry for hot dogs and dopes, and it would be nice to smell the starch of summer linens and the faint odor of talc in blistering summer bath houses ... We could lie in long citoneuse beams of the five o'clock sun on the plage at Juan-les-Pins and hear the sound of the drum and piano being scooped out to sea by the waves.”
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“Nothing could have survived our life.”
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