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The Basil and Josephine Stories
Fourteen of F. Scott Fitzgerald's best-loved and most beguiling stories, together in a single volume
In 1928, while struggling with his novel Tender Is the Night, Fitzgerald began writing a series of stories about Basil Duke Lee, a fictionalized version of his younger self. Drawing on his childhood and adolescent experiences, Fitzgerald wrote nine tales that were published in the Saturday Evening Post about his life from the time he was an eleven-year-old boy living in Buffalo, New York, until he entered Princeton University in 1913. Then from 1930 to 1931, with Tender Is the Night still unfinished, Fitzgerald wrote five more stories (also published in the Post) that centered around Josephine Perry, Basil's female counterpart. Although Fitzgerald intended to combine the fourteen Basil Lee and Josephine Perry stories into a single work, he never succeeded in doing so in his lifetime. Here, The Basil and Josephine Stories brings together in one volume the complete set, resulting in one of Fitzgerald's most charming and evocative works.
In 1928, while struggling with his novel Tender Is the Night, Fitzgerald began writing a series of stories about Basil Duke Lee, a fictionalized version of his younger self. Drawing on his childhood and adolescent experiences, Fitzgerald wrote nine tales that were published in the Saturday Evening Post about his life from the time he was an eleven-year-old boy living in Buffalo, New York, until he entered Princeton University in 1913. Then from 1930 to 1931, with Tender Is the Night still unfinished, Fitzgerald wrote five more stories (also published in the Post) that centered around Josephine Perry, Basil's female counterpart. Although Fitzgerald intended to combine the fourteen Basil Lee and Josephine Perry stories into a single work, he never succeeded in doing so in his lifetime. Here, The Basil and Josephine Stories brings together in one volume the complete set, resulting in one of Fitzgerald's most charming and evocative works.
336 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1928
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About the author
F. Scott Fitzgerald
2,030 books25.3k followersFrancis Scott Key Fitzgerald, widely known simply as Scott Fitzgerald, was an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. He is best known for his novels depicting the flamboyance and excess of the Jazz Age, a term he popularized in his short story collection Tales of the Jazz Age. During his lifetime, he published four novels, four story collections, and 164 short stories. Although he achieved temporary popular success and fortune in the 1920s, Fitzgerald received critical acclaim only after his death and is now widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century.
Born into a middle-class family in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Fitzgerald was raised primarily in New York state. He attended Princeton University where he befriended future literary critic Edmund Wilson. Owing to a failed romantic relationship with Chicago socialite Ginevra King, he dropped out in 1917 to join the United States Army during World War I. While stationed in Alabama, he met Zelda Sayre, a Southern debutante who belonged to Montgomery's exclusive country-club set. Although she initially rejected Fitzgerald's marriage proposal due to his lack of financial prospects, Zelda agreed to marry him after he published the commercially successful This Side of Paradise (1920). The novel became a cultural sensation and cemented his reputation as one of the eminent writers of the decade.
His second novel, The Beautiful and Damned (1922), propelled him further into the cultural elite. To maintain his affluent lifestyle, he wrote numerous stories for popular magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post, Collier's Weekly, and Esquire. During this period, Fitzgerald frequented Europe, where he befriended modernist writers and artists of the "Lost Generation" expatriate community, including Ernest Hemingway. His third novel, The Great Gatsby (1925), received generally favorable reviews but was a commercial failure, selling fewer than 23,000 copies in its first year. Despite its lackluster debut, The Great Gatsby is now hailed by some literary critics as the "Great American Novel". Following the deterioration of his wife's mental health and her placement in a mental institute for schizophrenia, Fitzgerald completed his final novel, Tender Is the Night (1934).
Struggling financially because of the declining popularity of his works during the Great Depression, Fitzgerald moved to Hollywood, where he embarked upon an unsuccessful career as a screenwriter. While living in Hollywood, he cohabited with columnist Sheilah Graham, his final companion before his death. After a long struggle with alcoholism, he attained sobriety only to die of a heart attack in 1940, at 44. His friend Edmund Wilson edited and published an unfinished fifth novel, The Last Tycoon (1941), after Fitzgerald's death. In 1993, a new edition was published as The Love of the Last Tycoon, edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli.
Born into a middle-class family in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Fitzgerald was raised primarily in New York state. He attended Princeton University where he befriended future literary critic Edmund Wilson. Owing to a failed romantic relationship with Chicago socialite Ginevra King, he dropped out in 1917 to join the United States Army during World War I. While stationed in Alabama, he met Zelda Sayre, a Southern debutante who belonged to Montgomery's exclusive country-club set. Although she initially rejected Fitzgerald's marriage proposal due to his lack of financial prospects, Zelda agreed to marry him after he published the commercially successful This Side of Paradise (1920). The novel became a cultural sensation and cemented his reputation as one of the eminent writers of the decade.
His second novel, The Beautiful and Damned (1922), propelled him further into the cultural elite. To maintain his affluent lifestyle, he wrote numerous stories for popular magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post, Collier's Weekly, and Esquire. During this period, Fitzgerald frequented Europe, where he befriended modernist writers and artists of the "Lost Generation" expatriate community, including Ernest Hemingway. His third novel, The Great Gatsby (1925), received generally favorable reviews but was a commercial failure, selling fewer than 23,000 copies in its first year. Despite its lackluster debut, The Great Gatsby is now hailed by some literary critics as the "Great American Novel". Following the deterioration of his wife's mental health and her placement in a mental institute for schizophrenia, Fitzgerald completed his final novel, Tender Is the Night (1934).
Struggling financially because of the declining popularity of his works during the Great Depression, Fitzgerald moved to Hollywood, where he embarked upon an unsuccessful career as a screenwriter. While living in Hollywood, he cohabited with columnist Sheilah Graham, his final companion before his death. After a long struggle with alcoholism, he attained sobriety only to die of a heart attack in 1940, at 44. His friend Edmund Wilson edited and published an unfinished fifth novel, The Last Tycoon (1941), after Fitzgerald's death. In 1993, a new edition was published as The Love of the Last Tycoon, edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 78 reviews
September 7, 2024
Empieza como una especie de eslabón perdido entre Tom Sawyer, de Twain, y El pequeño Nicolás, de Gosciny, y yo caigo rendido. Transcurrido un tercio, aparece el primer episodio amargo, doloroso, y entonces yo ya le vendo mi alma. Cuando va por los dos tercios, llega un episodio agridulce, gracioso y conmovedor, y yo chocho perdido. Y aunque hacia el final insiste demasiado en el aspecto que menos me interesa del conjunto, las aventuras amorosas del protagonista, lo acabo sin ganas de que se acabe.
Un Fitzgerald menor, quizás, pero con el encanto habitual de su escritura.
No me hagan mucho caso: soy un fanboy del autor.
Un Fitzgerald menor, quizás, pero con el encanto habitual de su escritura.
No me hagan mucho caso: soy un fanboy del autor.
July 10, 2016
My brain says Hemingway but my heart and soul belong to Fitzgerald.
The Basil stories are based on FSF's own life and center on a boy/young man growing up, his ambitions and efforts to be both successful and well-liked. The Josephine stories are apparently based on a real-life young woman FSF was in love with in his youth. Basil is more interesting and Josephine, being a woman, is punished for her sins! Oh FSF. I love you in spite of yourself.
I didn't really love either Basil or Josephine, and in my opinion these stories are for the hard core Fitzgerald fan (me). Though I didn't love them, FSF still sings to me.
The Basil stories are based on FSF's own life and center on a boy/young man growing up, his ambitions and efforts to be both successful and well-liked. The Josephine stories are apparently based on a real-life young woman FSF was in love with in his youth. Basil is more interesting and Josephine, being a woman, is punished for her sins! Oh FSF. I love you in spite of yourself.
I didn't really love either Basil or Josephine, and in my opinion these stories are for the hard core Fitzgerald fan (me). Though I didn't love them, FSF still sings to me.
September 28, 2020
Kitabın güzel tarafı 20'lerin Amerika'sı ve gençlerin arayışlarını çok güzel ve canlı bir şekilde yansıtması, ki Fitzgerald'ın hikayelerini okuyanlar bundan çok iyi nasiplenir. Kitabın Basil'a ait ilk bölümü ne kadar eğlenceli ve sürükleyiciyse, Josephin'e ait bölüm de bir o kadar sıkıcı ve havada kalmış.
June 18, 2018
One of my absolute favorite books. I love these well written stories! The characters, the time period, (just before the first world war) the places - the way F. Scott Fitzgerald brings it all to life for us, and makes us long to be able to experience a moment or two alongside them in their lives...
F. Scott Fitzgerald's youth is in here with such poignancy it is palatable. A treasure!
F. Scott Fitzgerald's youth is in here with such poignancy it is palatable. A treasure!
July 11, 2018
The Midwest back when it was the Middle West.
June 18, 2023
Teenage lives, treated with an ironic aestheticism.
December 29, 2020
As F. Scott Fitzgerald was struggling mightily with the novel that would become Tender Is the Night in 1928 and 1929, he suddenly reached back into his past and wrote a series of nine short stories detailing the adolescence of Basil Duke Lee. These stories brought Fitzgerald a great deal of money, as The Saturday Evening Post paid Fitzgerald just under $3,500 for each of the Basil stories, or a little over $50,000 in 2020 dollars. Not too shabby, old sport. All of the Basil stories weren’t collected together until the publication of The Basil and Josephine Stories in 1973, 33 years after Fitzgerald’s death.
The Basil Duke Lee stories contain some of Fitzgerald’s finest writing. It’s overly simplistic to say that the Basil stories are autobiographical. However, the stories draw in large part from Fitzgerald’s own life. Fitzgerald biographer Scott Donaldson wrote of the Basil stories: “The stories present recognizable people and places from his boyhood and can be traced to their origins in the yearly ledger he kept.” (Fitzgerald & Hemingway: Works and Days, p.42)
Reading these short stories gave me the sense that Basil Duke Lee shared many personality traits with his creator. There are many surface similarities between Basil and Fitzgerald: both grew up in St. Paul, both lived on Holly Avenue, and they both go off to boarding school and college in the East. Basil’s boarding school is St. Regis, a fictional stand-in for the Newman School in New Jersey, a Catholic prep school Fitzgerald attended his junior and senior years. When the time came for college, Basil attended Yale, rival to Fitzgerald’s Princeton.
The Basil short stories are a showcase for Fitzgerald’s sense of humor and irony, which often get overlooked in discussions of his writing. One of the incidents I found the most humorous was at the end of “The Scandal Detectives.” Basil and his friend Riply Buckner have the brilliant idea to write down scandalous rumors that they hear about the upstanding citizens of Saint Paul. What little information they glean, they record in invisible ink in a hidden notebook. The narration then intrudes to inform us that the notebook was found years later by a janitor. Thinking it to be blank, he gave it to his daughter. Thus, the contents of the notebook were obliterated “beneath a fair copy of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.” (p.49) That twist feels perfectly Fitzgerald to me, as he was always deeply conscious of the impermanence of life.
Fitzgerald’s lyrical gift for description is on full display in the story “A Night at the Fair,” in which he paints a vivid picture of the Minnesota State Fair:
“The first lights of the evening were springing into pale existence; the afternoon crowd had thinned a little, and the lanes, empty of people, were heavy with the rich various smells of popcorn and peanuts, molasses and dust, and cooking Wienerwurst and a not-unpleasant overtone of animals and hay. The Ferris wheel, pricked out now in lights, revolved leisurely through the dusk; a few empty cars of the roller coaster rattled overhead. The heat had blown off and there was the crisp stimulating excitement of Northern autumn in the air.” (p.73)
A recurring theme in the stories is that Basil is a little too full of himself, and he makes the same mistakes over and over again. However, we do see Basil begin to grow up during the stories, and at the end of “The Freshest Boy” he has a poignant revelation: “He had gathered that life for everybody was a struggle, sometimes magnificent from a distance, but always difficult and surprisingly simple and a little sad.” (p.108)
On the final page of “The Freshest Boy” are three sentences of eloquence and beauty that rank among my favorite Fitzgerald quotations. “It isn’t given to us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world. They will not be cured by our most efficacious drugs or slain with our sharpest swords.” (p.110)
Malcolm Cowley famously wrote of what he called Fitzgerald’s “double vision.” Cowley meant that Fitzgerald was able to be in a social situation, and at the same time, be apart from it, and be critiquing it from the outside. I suspect Cowley was correct, and in “He Thinks He’s Wonderful,” something similar happens to Basil: “Passing from the gleaming store into the darkness, Basil was submerged in an unreality in which he seemed to see himself from the outside, and the pleasant events of the evening began to take on fresh importance.” (p.117)
The Josephine stories center around Josephine Perry, an attractive, wealthy young girl from Chicago. Written in 1930 and 1931, these five stories are less successful than the Basil stories, but still make for entertaining reading. Josephine was based on Ginevra King, Fitzgerald’s first serious girlfriend. Scott and Ginevra only met in person a handful of times, but they wrote each other frequently over a two-year period before they broke up. (For more about Scott and Ginevra, read James L.W. West’s excellent book The Perfect Hour.) West notes that since the Josephine stories were written after Zelda Fitzgerald’s mental breakdown, “Josephine Perry shows the effects of Fitzgerald’s disillusionment.” (The Perfect Hour, p.102) I agree with West, and I think Fitzgerald’s personal identification with Basil make those stories stronger. Fitzgerald understood Basil because he was so similar to him, and Fitzgerald probably found it more difficult to access the psychology of Josephine. And it may have been that Fitzgerald had lost interest in accessing the psychology of a character like Josephine. What was the sense in writing about a beautiful young girl playing flirtatious games when your wife was spending 15 months in a Swiss sanitarium?
While the Basil stories are full of humor, there’s precious little humor to soften Josephine. However, Fitzgerald does have an excellent line at the beginning of “A Snobbish Story” when he writes about the summer of 1915: “Dresses were long and hats were small and tight, and America, shut in on itself, was bored beyond belief.” (p.286)
Fitzgerald toyed with collecting the Basil and Josephine stories together as a book, and he intended to write a short story where he brought Basil and Josephine together, but it never happened. Fitzgerald had misgivings about a Basil and Josephine book, thinking that it might seem too trivial. Personally, I think these stories stand with the best that Fitzgerald wrote, and I think he was incorrect to undervalue the material. But, as so many authors are, Fitzgerald was a harsh critic of his own work. I can understand some of Fitzgerald’s hesitation at publishing a book of Basil and Josephine stories in, say, 1932. He was trying to reestablish his reputation as a novelist, and he didn’t feel that a collection of stories about adolescent romance was about to do that. However, a Fitzgerald book of any kind in 1932 would have kept his name before the reading public at a time when he hadn’t published a novel for 7 years, and a collection of short stories for 6 years. Ultimately, 9 years passed between the publication of The Great Gatsby and Tender Is the Night. When Fitzgerald selected short stories for his next collection, 1935’s Taps at Reveille, he selected 5 of the Basil stories, and 3 of the Josephine stories. The Basil and Josephine Stories fills an important place in the Fitzgerald canon by collecting all these excellent stories together.
A final odd footnote to the Basil Duke Lee stories: in 1935 a Mrs. Albert Kibble wrote a letter to Basil Duke Lee, care of The Saturday Evening Post, and asked if he was her long-lost half-brother. (Mrs. Kibble didn’t seem to understand that the short story was a piece of fiction, and that Basil didn’t actually exist.) The letter was forwarded on to Fitzgerald, who mischievously replied in character as Basil. Fitzgerald opened with: “I got your letter here in the Penitentiary just as I was about to be hanged for murder.” Fitzgerald writes that if he gets out of jail, he would love to come and stay with Mrs. Kibble. He closes by saying, “Please write me care of my attorney, F. Scott Fitzgerald.” (Correspondence of F. Scott Fitzgerald, p.409-10)
Fitzgerald referenced this incident in his 1936 essay “Author’s House,” in which a visitor pokes around a house that is occupied by an unnamed writer who is a stand-in for Fitzgerald. The writer tells the visitor: “The letter amused me and was so different from any that I had received for a long time that I made up an answer to it.” The writer then receives the woman’s response to his facetious letter that informed her that her brother was on death row. In her response, the woman replies that he can stay with her if he is released from jail and not executed. The author suffers a pang of regret for lying to this woman, and he tells his secretary to respond that her brother is out of jail and went to China, and to enclose $5. The writer then remarks to his visitor, “You can pay a little money but what can you do for meddling with a human heart? A writer’s temperament is continually making him do things he can never repair.” (A Short Autobiography, p.137-9)
The Basil Duke Lee stories contain some of Fitzgerald’s finest writing. It’s overly simplistic to say that the Basil stories are autobiographical. However, the stories draw in large part from Fitzgerald’s own life. Fitzgerald biographer Scott Donaldson wrote of the Basil stories: “The stories present recognizable people and places from his boyhood and can be traced to their origins in the yearly ledger he kept.” (Fitzgerald & Hemingway: Works and Days, p.42)
Reading these short stories gave me the sense that Basil Duke Lee shared many personality traits with his creator. There are many surface similarities between Basil and Fitzgerald: both grew up in St. Paul, both lived on Holly Avenue, and they both go off to boarding school and college in the East. Basil’s boarding school is St. Regis, a fictional stand-in for the Newman School in New Jersey, a Catholic prep school Fitzgerald attended his junior and senior years. When the time came for college, Basil attended Yale, rival to Fitzgerald’s Princeton.
The Basil short stories are a showcase for Fitzgerald’s sense of humor and irony, which often get overlooked in discussions of his writing. One of the incidents I found the most humorous was at the end of “The Scandal Detectives.” Basil and his friend Riply Buckner have the brilliant idea to write down scandalous rumors that they hear about the upstanding citizens of Saint Paul. What little information they glean, they record in invisible ink in a hidden notebook. The narration then intrudes to inform us that the notebook was found years later by a janitor. Thinking it to be blank, he gave it to his daughter. Thus, the contents of the notebook were obliterated “beneath a fair copy of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.” (p.49) That twist feels perfectly Fitzgerald to me, as he was always deeply conscious of the impermanence of life.
Fitzgerald’s lyrical gift for description is on full display in the story “A Night at the Fair,” in which he paints a vivid picture of the Minnesota State Fair:
“The first lights of the evening were springing into pale existence; the afternoon crowd had thinned a little, and the lanes, empty of people, were heavy with the rich various smells of popcorn and peanuts, molasses and dust, and cooking Wienerwurst and a not-unpleasant overtone of animals and hay. The Ferris wheel, pricked out now in lights, revolved leisurely through the dusk; a few empty cars of the roller coaster rattled overhead. The heat had blown off and there was the crisp stimulating excitement of Northern autumn in the air.” (p.73)
A recurring theme in the stories is that Basil is a little too full of himself, and he makes the same mistakes over and over again. However, we do see Basil begin to grow up during the stories, and at the end of “The Freshest Boy” he has a poignant revelation: “He had gathered that life for everybody was a struggle, sometimes magnificent from a distance, but always difficult and surprisingly simple and a little sad.” (p.108)
On the final page of “The Freshest Boy” are three sentences of eloquence and beauty that rank among my favorite Fitzgerald quotations. “It isn’t given to us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world. They will not be cured by our most efficacious drugs or slain with our sharpest swords.” (p.110)
Malcolm Cowley famously wrote of what he called Fitzgerald’s “double vision.” Cowley meant that Fitzgerald was able to be in a social situation, and at the same time, be apart from it, and be critiquing it from the outside. I suspect Cowley was correct, and in “He Thinks He’s Wonderful,” something similar happens to Basil: “Passing from the gleaming store into the darkness, Basil was submerged in an unreality in which he seemed to see himself from the outside, and the pleasant events of the evening began to take on fresh importance.” (p.117)
The Josephine stories center around Josephine Perry, an attractive, wealthy young girl from Chicago. Written in 1930 and 1931, these five stories are less successful than the Basil stories, but still make for entertaining reading. Josephine was based on Ginevra King, Fitzgerald’s first serious girlfriend. Scott and Ginevra only met in person a handful of times, but they wrote each other frequently over a two-year period before they broke up. (For more about Scott and Ginevra, read James L.W. West’s excellent book The Perfect Hour.) West notes that since the Josephine stories were written after Zelda Fitzgerald’s mental breakdown, “Josephine Perry shows the effects of Fitzgerald’s disillusionment.” (The Perfect Hour, p.102) I agree with West, and I think Fitzgerald’s personal identification with Basil make those stories stronger. Fitzgerald understood Basil because he was so similar to him, and Fitzgerald probably found it more difficult to access the psychology of Josephine. And it may have been that Fitzgerald had lost interest in accessing the psychology of a character like Josephine. What was the sense in writing about a beautiful young girl playing flirtatious games when your wife was spending 15 months in a Swiss sanitarium?
While the Basil stories are full of humor, there’s precious little humor to soften Josephine. However, Fitzgerald does have an excellent line at the beginning of “A Snobbish Story” when he writes about the summer of 1915: “Dresses were long and hats were small and tight, and America, shut in on itself, was bored beyond belief.” (p.286)
Fitzgerald toyed with collecting the Basil and Josephine stories together as a book, and he intended to write a short story where he brought Basil and Josephine together, but it never happened. Fitzgerald had misgivings about a Basil and Josephine book, thinking that it might seem too trivial. Personally, I think these stories stand with the best that Fitzgerald wrote, and I think he was incorrect to undervalue the material. But, as so many authors are, Fitzgerald was a harsh critic of his own work. I can understand some of Fitzgerald’s hesitation at publishing a book of Basil and Josephine stories in, say, 1932. He was trying to reestablish his reputation as a novelist, and he didn’t feel that a collection of stories about adolescent romance was about to do that. However, a Fitzgerald book of any kind in 1932 would have kept his name before the reading public at a time when he hadn’t published a novel for 7 years, and a collection of short stories for 6 years. Ultimately, 9 years passed between the publication of The Great Gatsby and Tender Is the Night. When Fitzgerald selected short stories for his next collection, 1935’s Taps at Reveille, he selected 5 of the Basil stories, and 3 of the Josephine stories. The Basil and Josephine Stories fills an important place in the Fitzgerald canon by collecting all these excellent stories together.
A final odd footnote to the Basil Duke Lee stories: in 1935 a Mrs. Albert Kibble wrote a letter to Basil Duke Lee, care of The Saturday Evening Post, and asked if he was her long-lost half-brother. (Mrs. Kibble didn’t seem to understand that the short story was a piece of fiction, and that Basil didn’t actually exist.) The letter was forwarded on to Fitzgerald, who mischievously replied in character as Basil. Fitzgerald opened with: “I got your letter here in the Penitentiary just as I was about to be hanged for murder.” Fitzgerald writes that if he gets out of jail, he would love to come and stay with Mrs. Kibble. He closes by saying, “Please write me care of my attorney, F. Scott Fitzgerald.” (Correspondence of F. Scott Fitzgerald, p.409-10)
Fitzgerald referenced this incident in his 1936 essay “Author’s House,” in which a visitor pokes around a house that is occupied by an unnamed writer who is a stand-in for Fitzgerald. The writer tells the visitor: “The letter amused me and was so different from any that I had received for a long time that I made up an answer to it.” The writer then receives the woman’s response to his facetious letter that informed her that her brother was on death row. In her response, the woman replies that he can stay with her if he is released from jail and not executed. The author suffers a pang of regret for lying to this woman, and he tells his secretary to respond that her brother is out of jail and went to China, and to enclose $5. The writer then remarks to his visitor, “You can pay a little money but what can you do for meddling with a human heart? A writer’s temperament is continually making him do things he can never repair.” (A Short Autobiography, p.137-9)
April 1, 2019
4 stars!
I'm not one for contemporaries. What I mean by that is I don't really gravitate towards stories that have teenagers going through the trials of life as the main focus. However, Fitzgerald is the exception. Maybe my fascination and intrigue is owed to the fact that he is depicting an era of the American past that is practically foreign to us. His beautiful prose is also a tremendous help as well.
Scott has a gift for crafting individuals that by all means shouldn't be that interesting (even rather insufferable) but also sympathetic. Scott lays down not only the faults of both Basil and Josephine but their insecurities and vulnerabilities too. That is where these stories really shine for me.
I do prefer the Basil stories, as they are longer and with much more humor. Also, if you have ever read The Boyhood Diary of F. Scott Fitzgerald you really can't help but see the similarities between Basil Duke Lee and the young Scott. I don't think it would be presumptuous of me to say that Scott took a significant amount of inspiration for the character of Basil from his younger self.
I look forward to another short story collection from Scott very soon!
I'm not one for contemporaries. What I mean by that is I don't really gravitate towards stories that have teenagers going through the trials of life as the main focus. However, Fitzgerald is the exception. Maybe my fascination and intrigue is owed to the fact that he is depicting an era of the American past that is practically foreign to us. His beautiful prose is also a tremendous help as well.
Scott has a gift for crafting individuals that by all means shouldn't be that interesting (even rather insufferable) but also sympathetic. Scott lays down not only the faults of both Basil and Josephine but their insecurities and vulnerabilities too. That is where these stories really shine for me.
I do prefer the Basil stories, as they are longer and with much more humor. Also, if you have ever read The Boyhood Diary of F. Scott Fitzgerald you really can't help but see the similarities between Basil Duke Lee and the young Scott. I don't think it would be presumptuous of me to say that Scott took a significant amount of inspiration for the character of Basil from his younger self.
I look forward to another short story collection from Scott very soon!
December 18, 2018
These semi-autobiographical stories by Fitzgerald are charming and entertaining -- especially the Basil stories. Readers of Fitzgerald biographies will recognize some of these scenes and anecdotes in fictional form. Most of the Basil stories are set in St. Paul and are based on FSF's boyhood, as well as his time at boarding school and college. As for the Josephine stories, they seem somewhat more mean-spirited, which is interesting. The Josephine stories are said to be based on FSF's early flame, Ginevra King -- whose family famously rejected Fitzgerald because he wasn't rich enough -- and perhaps that colors his view of Josephine. One does wish that Fitzgerald would have followed through on his plan to eventually bring Basil and Josephine together in a final story. Now, that would be fun to read!
October 15, 2017
Maybe more of a 3.5--- some were better than others.I can't believe these stories were never compiled all together during Fitzgerald's lifetime. Together, you get a complete picture of the title characters in the linked stories--- kind of like Updike's Maples Stories or Winesburg Ohio. Uneven, but I always enjoy Fitzgerald.
April 4, 2020
2,5
El propio título ya nos cuenta el argumento de la novela. La novela nos relata el recorrido personal del joven Basil, sus aventurillas, los líos en los que se mete, su obsesión por caer bien a todos, por ser popular, sus aspiraciones, sus enamoramientos. Lo más interesante es saber que el libro tiene tintes autobiográficos, esto es así en todas las novelas que he leído de Fitzgerald hasta ahora, es interesante ver representado al autor en el joven Basil.
Me parece un libro correcto en todos los sentidos, escrito de forma correcta, desarrollo correcto, personajes correctos. No sobresale ni destaca en ningún sentido, es un libro entretenido que se deja leer sin más.
El propio título ya nos cuenta el argumento de la novela. La novela nos relata el recorrido personal del joven Basil, sus aventurillas, los líos en los que se mete, su obsesión por caer bien a todos, por ser popular, sus aspiraciones, sus enamoramientos. Lo más interesante es saber que el libro tiene tintes autobiográficos, esto es así en todas las novelas que he leído de Fitzgerald hasta ahora, es interesante ver representado al autor en el joven Basil.
Me parece un libro correcto en todos los sentidos, escrito de forma correcta, desarrollo correcto, personajes correctos. No sobresale ni destaca en ningún sentido, es un libro entretenido que se deja leer sin más.
December 24, 2023
Interesting collection of short stories. A window into an almost unimaginable America but themes of youth and its vagaries that are somehow timeless. 3.5 stars, rounded down.
January 30, 2021
Scott Fitzgerald's literary reputation as just a chronicler-in-fiction of 'The Jazz Age' is undermined by this excellent collection of his stories of adolescent, romantic liaisons in the mid-1910s...told with style & depth...& encompassing some of his own experiences in an America still exhibiting a refusal to move forward, despite telephones, automobiles & electricity! He writes so smoothly, perfectly capturing the naive & easily-confused minds of his protagonists - unknown to each other - Basil & Josephine...both tantalised by the opposite sex & struggling in well-heeled social circles to fathom the swirling undercurrents of their world...soon to be turned upside-down by war, Spanish flu & economic boom & bust.
A very entertaining read of a master story-teller who makes every scene into a mini-drama...like most youthful spirits trying to keep their dreams alive.
A very entertaining read of a master story-teller who makes every scene into a mini-drama...like most youthful spirits trying to keep their dreams alive.
December 23, 2024
Quaint little short stories to pad out my 2025 reading challenge
September 7, 2016
2.5 stars.
I never thought I'd rate an FSF book so low, but I just couldn't get into this one. I didn't care for Basil or Josephine- I found them both irritating and I also kept pitying Basil, who tried so hard to be good and kept falling into the same problems. The only reason I was able to finish this book is because FSF's writing is always so good. To be fair, I'm not big on short stories, but I think I found these especially hard to get through because they were always the same story, with the same lesson learned by the end, and then repeated in the next story. A rare FSF miss for me.
I never thought I'd rate an FSF book so low, but I just couldn't get into this one. I didn't care for Basil or Josephine- I found them both irritating and I also kept pitying Basil, who tried so hard to be good and kept falling into the same problems. The only reason I was able to finish this book is because FSF's writing is always so good. To be fair, I'm not big on short stories, but I think I found these especially hard to get through because they were always the same story, with the same lesson learned by the end, and then repeated in the next story. A rare FSF miss for me.
August 18, 2016
2.5
Overall very unimpressed with this short story collection. I've loved everything I've read by FSF and I expected/wanted to love this too!
I found all the themes (or at least how they were presented) very shallow and badly rehashed versions of what he's done in previous stories. I found the conclusion to Josephine's stories particularly disappointing; FSF writes brilliant women and I don't understand how he could be at the same time preaching these types of beliefs.
Overall very unimpressed with this short story collection. I've loved everything I've read by FSF and I expected/wanted to love this too!
I found all the themes (or at least how they were presented) very shallow and badly rehashed versions of what he's done in previous stories. I found the conclusion to Josephine's stories particularly disappointing; FSF writes brilliant women and I don't understand how he could be at the same time preaching these types of beliefs.
February 15, 2017
Ojalá hubiera leído este libro hace algunos años, es fantástico. Una razón más para admirar profundamente a Scott.
January 17, 2020
5 stars for the Basil stories, 2 stars for the Josephine stories. The Josephine stories just weren't that interesting and the character was eh. The Basil stories were excellent however.
April 21, 2021
A collection of the 14 stories that Fitzgerald wrote about his teenage avatars.
Book Review: The Basil and Josephine Stories is part of the endless repackaging of Fitzgerald's treasure trove. He released only four short fiction collections in his lifetime, consisting of 46 stories in all, each released after one of his novels. Since then there've been two significant collections of his selected stories (by Malcolm Cowley (1951) and Matthew Bruccoli (1989)), and many other smaller selections in various groupings. For the devout Fitzgerald aficionado there is now much more than the four novels and story collections he published. The Basil and Josephine Stories fits a particularly esoteric niche. These are YA stories (teen and pre-teen) of the first decade of the Twentieth Century. Tales of adolescence, of love and popularity, told by the brash and insecure Basil (nine episodes) and the impulsive but seductive Josephine (five stories). Though he describes both well and convincingly, the differing presentations, attitudes, and outlooks between his female and male personas is telling and would make a good thesis subject, which perhaps could be extended to an examination of the male and female characters in his novels. At times the biographical component is as intriguing as the fictional. For these are stories that Fitzgerald took from life: how he saw himself coming of age and portraits of the girls and women to whom he was attracted. Generally it seems that the more popular a girl the more desirable she was, a recipe born of insecurity and heading for (teenage) disaster. Although few would call these his most meaningful short fiction (the invaluable Introduction, however, makes a strong case for possible levels of analysis), they are compelling and enjoyable for the cataclysmic intensity of their emotional onslaught. At least for those willing to expend time revisiting early youth, as at that age every passion is novel and undoubtedly incapable of repetition, meaning that any given moment may be the end of the world and life as we know it. The Basil and Josephine Stories is for Fitzgerald completists, those exploring his biography, and for that small band of intrepid souls willing to relive those first early moments of passion and loss. [3½★]
Book Review: The Basil and Josephine Stories is part of the endless repackaging of Fitzgerald's treasure trove. He released only four short fiction collections in his lifetime, consisting of 46 stories in all, each released after one of his novels. Since then there've been two significant collections of his selected stories (by Malcolm Cowley (1951) and Matthew Bruccoli (1989)), and many other smaller selections in various groupings. For the devout Fitzgerald aficionado there is now much more than the four novels and story collections he published. The Basil and Josephine Stories fits a particularly esoteric niche. These are YA stories (teen and pre-teen) of the first decade of the Twentieth Century. Tales of adolescence, of love and popularity, told by the brash and insecure Basil (nine episodes) and the impulsive but seductive Josephine (five stories). Though he describes both well and convincingly, the differing presentations, attitudes, and outlooks between his female and male personas is telling and would make a good thesis subject, which perhaps could be extended to an examination of the male and female characters in his novels. At times the biographical component is as intriguing as the fictional. For these are stories that Fitzgerald took from life: how he saw himself coming of age and portraits of the girls and women to whom he was attracted. Generally it seems that the more popular a girl the more desirable she was, a recipe born of insecurity and heading for (teenage) disaster. Although few would call these his most meaningful short fiction (the invaluable Introduction, however, makes a strong case for possible levels of analysis), they are compelling and enjoyable for the cataclysmic intensity of their emotional onslaught. At least for those willing to expend time revisiting early youth, as at that age every passion is novel and undoubtedly incapable of repetition, meaning that any given moment may be the end of the world and life as we know it. The Basil and Josephine Stories is for Fitzgerald completists, those exploring his biography, and for that small band of intrepid souls willing to relive those first early moments of passion and loss. [3½★]
December 6, 2023
Fitzgerald was a brilliant writer. His prose sparkles. It flows like a river. His descriptions of people and places put you in the same room with the characters in ways that few other writers can manage. And while these stories take place in the time of my grandparents, they are contemporary enough that I can relate to them. But they are most definitely stories of spoiled little rich white kids. Basil may be less wealthy than his classmates at St. Regis and Yale, but he lives the lifestyle of the 1%. We are told that he might have to work to pay his way through Yale. Boo hoo. But then his mom's family sells a commercial building for what would probably amount to $50m today. And that’s not even in the same class as Josephine, whose family is filthy rich.
Basil and Josephine are both attractive, stylish and charismatic. They are born to rule. Despite their ups and downs, they are clearly destined for success. Over the course of the stories, we see them mature. Basil learns to control his tongue and to elevate his thinking in his approach to girls. Josephine stops taking pleasure in teasing and torturing every handsome boy she meets. But in my mind, they both remained complete disasters as human beings from start to finish. Basil never stops being a wheeler dealer. He'll go on to do big business deals and make a lot of money, even if he has to do a few shady things along the way to get the success that he knows in his heart that he deserves. And Josephine is a pot stirring troublemaker to the bottom of her shallow character. If she had lived 100 years later, she would have been a reality TV star. She could hang out with the Kardashians or go on Vanderpump Rules. At the end of the final story, all of the flavor is out of the gum for her in her flirtations, but I came away from the last story with the expectation that the next step for her would be rich husband hunting stripped of any romantic illusions or genuine feeling. Fitzgerald manages to give both Basil and Josephine a touch of charisma, so that we want to like them. We root for them to be redeemed, but I came away from the book feeling that they were not redeemed and never would be. They were appalling people.
Basil and Josephine are both attractive, stylish and charismatic. They are born to rule. Despite their ups and downs, they are clearly destined for success. Over the course of the stories, we see them mature. Basil learns to control his tongue and to elevate his thinking in his approach to girls. Josephine stops taking pleasure in teasing and torturing every handsome boy she meets. But in my mind, they both remained complete disasters as human beings from start to finish. Basil never stops being a wheeler dealer. He'll go on to do big business deals and make a lot of money, even if he has to do a few shady things along the way to get the success that he knows in his heart that he deserves. And Josephine is a pot stirring troublemaker to the bottom of her shallow character. If she had lived 100 years later, she would have been a reality TV star. She could hang out with the Kardashians or go on Vanderpump Rules. At the end of the final story, all of the flavor is out of the gum for her in her flirtations, but I came away from the last story with the expectation that the next step for her would be rich husband hunting stripped of any romantic illusions or genuine feeling. Fitzgerald manages to give both Basil and Josephine a touch of charisma, so that we want to like them. We root for them to be redeemed, but I came away from the book feeling that they were not redeemed and never would be. They were appalling people.
March 17, 2025
I really enjoyed this book, his writing in this is so classically him. So, if you enjoy that you will enjoy the book. It’s a brutalist world gilded by his superior pen. While it is covered in beauty there is an inescapable and underlying doom pervasive throughout. A feeling that nothing is ever as it seems and that happiness and life itself are always fleeting or just out of reach. It takes you back to a time in life when self discovery and boundless ambition litters your thoughts and reminds you that you can put those lenses back on. However, life is at its best when you take it for what it is. Enjoy the moment and bask in the emotion life offers you. My favorite quote was “It was the first time in his life that he had ever felt the need of tranquility, but now he took long breaths of it.”
August 9, 2024
"Basil and Josephine" is a typical example of Fitzgerald's work. The book charts the coming of age of two privileged youths growing up in the American mid west.
The book is split into two describing the life of each of the young protagonists in the 1910's . I really enjoyed the Basil part of the novel but I found Josephine's story a little irritating probably because of the way Fitzgerald portrays upper class women as "butterflies" flitting from one person to another and getting upset when things do not go theirway. Having said this their portrayal maybe a sign of the times
It is said that Basil was autobiography of Fitzgerald himself and Josephine was a mixture of his wifw Zelda and his first love Ginerva King. Not my favourite Fitzgerald book.
The book is split into two describing the life of each of the young protagonists in the 1910's . I really enjoyed the Basil part of the novel but I found Josephine's story a little irritating probably because of the way Fitzgerald portrays upper class women as "butterflies" flitting from one person to another and getting upset when things do not go theirway. Having said this their portrayal maybe a sign of the times
It is said that Basil was autobiography of Fitzgerald himself and Josephine was a mixture of his wifw Zelda and his first love Ginerva King. Not my favourite Fitzgerald book.
April 28, 2020
I'd never heard of this book when I picked it up in a Little Free Library. It was likeable enough, and easy to read about the misadventures of Basil Duke Lee (loosely based on Fitzgerald himself) and then later about Josephine Perry. The stories do not coincide, and I didn't quite feel like either character got any resolution. Their collection of short stories both ended somewhat abruptly. I'll probably be taking this book back to the Little Free Library so someone else can read this little-known Fitzgerald collection.
September 5, 2021
I will forever be fascinated by stories about the Lost Generation, hence, I will forever be biased by F.Scott's writing.
I enjoyed the Basil stories more, as well as the autobiographical ones. "Show Mr. and Mrs. F. to Room Number—” was a bit difficult for me to read as it is written mostly by Zelda and I am very used to Scott's writing. Nevertheless, it was really interesting to get acquainted with something they worked on together.
I enjoyed the Basil stories more, as well as the autobiographical ones. "Show Mr. and Mrs. F. to Room Number—” was a bit difficult for me to read as it is written mostly by Zelda and I am very used to Scott's writing. Nevertheless, it was really interesting to get acquainted with something they worked on together.
June 30, 2025
Are you serious? His name is literally Basil. Aside from the silly names, the fountain bathing scene has stuck with me since freshman year. No, not like that - get your head out of the gutter. I honestly wish that I could bathe in a fountain in the city like they did.
Fitzgerald is great don't get me wrong I just wasn't the biggest raver of this book. Was also the fits book I had to mandatorily read in high school. Maybe that explains the rating...
Fitzgerald is great don't get me wrong I just wasn't the biggest raver of this book. Was also the fits book I had to mandatorily read in high school. Maybe that explains the rating...
January 6, 2024
“He saw that she was lying, but it was a brave lie. They talked from their hearts - with half truths and evasions peculiar to that organ, which has never been famed as an instrument of precision. They pieced together all the shreds of romance they knew and made garments for each other no less warm than their childish passion, no less wonderful than their sense of wonder.”
Some authors, particular those that dabble in science fiction or magical realism, act as kaleidoscopes, twisting and turning the familiar into strange shapes and heretofore unseen colours. Fitzgerald, for all my love of him, is not that. If writing about things that are far removed from reality and personal experience is the height of creativity, then Fitzgerald is the most boring author at all. All of his works seem to be reworkings, analyses, and reflections of his own personal life, the characters all variations of himself at various points of time in his life, or the people that he loved. Less kaleidoscope, more old timey film camera where the edges of the pictures produced are smudged with the colour of nostalgia.
Basil seems to be a stand-in for adolescent Fitzgerald, a rather precocious and conceited young man that is girl obsessed. Josephine seems to be based on one of Fitzgerald’s early beaus, with all the faults and charms appropriate for someone that is remembered painfully. As a whole, I liked the stories, though both characters are rather cringe at times, as befitting their age. As with all of his works, I don’t think the strength lies in the overall plot, but rather in how Fitzgerald captures specific moments, specific looks that people give when enchanted by love, specific dreams that one might have about the future, etc. Even in these relatively unknown stories, his writing and lyricism shines through, and that makes it worth reading.
Some authors, particular those that dabble in science fiction or magical realism, act as kaleidoscopes, twisting and turning the familiar into strange shapes and heretofore unseen colours. Fitzgerald, for all my love of him, is not that. If writing about things that are far removed from reality and personal experience is the height of creativity, then Fitzgerald is the most boring author at all. All of his works seem to be reworkings, analyses, and reflections of his own personal life, the characters all variations of himself at various points of time in his life, or the people that he loved. Less kaleidoscope, more old timey film camera where the edges of the pictures produced are smudged with the colour of nostalgia.
Basil seems to be a stand-in for adolescent Fitzgerald, a rather precocious and conceited young man that is girl obsessed. Josephine seems to be based on one of Fitzgerald’s early beaus, with all the faults and charms appropriate for someone that is remembered painfully. As a whole, I liked the stories, though both characters are rather cringe at times, as befitting their age. As with all of his works, I don’t think the strength lies in the overall plot, but rather in how Fitzgerald captures specific moments, specific looks that people give when enchanted by love, specific dreams that one might have about the future, etc. Even in these relatively unknown stories, his writing and lyricism shines through, and that makes it worth reading.
June 22, 2020
3 stars for 300 pages of spoiled teenagers' soirées and 1 star for Josephine's scenes set in Chicago, which brought me quite a bit of nostalgia. I keep thinking I've read all of Fitzgerald's short stories at last...and then I find even more.
December 11, 2021
Pointless stories of wealthy entitled a-holes. Read Hemingway instead. The only decent story is "A Snobbish Story" that kicks the only interesting (and poor) character to the curb. FSF is overrated.
August 4, 2025
Not one of his amazing novels but a collection of stories he wrote that were compiled into a book. I loved it, especially knowing Basil was based on FSF’s adolescent years. Raw yet charming, each story was introspective and grew upon the other. I found myself cheering for him.
May 29, 2017
I preferred the Basil to the Josephine stories - possibly because Basil was closer to FSF's own experience, whereas he gets a bit didactic with Josephine.
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