This Side of Paradise

This Side of Paradise charts the life of Amory Blaine, an ambitious young man loosely based on Fitzgerald himself, as he moves from his well-heeled Midwest home to study at Princeton and then starts frequenting the circles of high society as an aspiring writer. Experiencing failure and frustration in love and in his career, Blaine finds his youthful enthusiasm gradually giving way to disillusionment, cynicism and a life of dissolution. A critical account of its own era, introducing many themes which would be developed in later works, Fitzgerald’s first novel was an instant critical and commercial success, propelling him into the limelight as a literary celebrity.

This Side of Paradise charts the life of Amory Blaine, an ambitious young man loosely based on Fitzgerald himself, as he moves from his well-heeled Midwest home to study at Princeton and then starts frequenting the circles of high society as an aspiring writer. Experiencing failure and frustration in love and in his career, Blaine finds his youthful enthusiasm gradually giving way to disillusionment, cynicism and a life of dissolution. A critical account of its own era, introducing many themes which would be developed in later works, Fitzgerald’s first novel was an instant critical and commercial success, propelling him into the limelight as a literary celebrity.

Amory Blaine, a young Midwesterner, is convinced that he has an exceptionally promising future. The reader follows Amory as he falls in love with Isabelle Borgé, a wealthy young debutante; a cruel and narcissistic flapper named Rosalind Connage; and Eleanor, a reckless eighteen-year-old atheist.An autobiographical novel and a portrait of the dawning Jazz Age, This Side of Paradise launched F. Scott Fitzgerald’s career and turned him into an overnight literary sensation.

Amory Blaine, a young Midwesterner, is convinced that he has an exceptionally promising future. The reader follows Amory as he falls in love with Isabelle Borgé, a wealthy young debutante; a cruel and narcissistic flapper named Rosalind Connage; and Eleanor, a reckless eighteen-year-old atheist.An autobiographical novel and a portrait of the dawning Jazz Age, This Side of Paradise launched F. Scott Fitzgerald’s career and turned him into an overnight literary sensation.

"I don't want to repeat my innocence. I want the pleasure of losing it again." -F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise (1920) This Side of Paradise (1920) is F. Scott Fitzgerald's first novel, written at the tender age of twenty-three and mirroring some of Fitzgerald's own experiences at Princeton University. This romance of the early Jazz Age is a commentary on how love can be affected by money and social status. Ironically, Fitzgerald's marriage to socialite Zelda Sayre was contingent upon publication of the novel. A critically acclaimed classic of the early twentieth century, this is a must-read for those who love Fitzgerald, debut novels, and the Jazz Age.

"I don't want to repeat my innocence. I want the pleasure of losing it again." -F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise (1920) This Side of Paradise (1920) is F. Scott Fitzgerald's first novel, written at the tender age of twenty-three and mirroring some of Fitzgerald's own experiences at Princeton University. This romance of the early Jazz Age is a commentary on how love can be affected by money and social status. Ironically, Fitzgerald's marriage to socialite Zelda Sayre was contingent upon publication of the novel. A critically acclaimed classic of the early twentieth century, this is a must-read for those who love Fitzgerald, debut novels, and the Jazz Age.

First published in 1920, This Side of Paradise marks the beginning of the career of one of the greatest writers of the first half of the twentieth century. In this remarkable achievement, F. Scott Fitzgerald displays his unparalleled wit and keen social insight in his portrayal of college life through the struggles and doubts of Amory Blaine, a self-proclaimed genius with a love of knowledge and a penchant for the romantic. As Amory journeys into adulthood and leaves the aristocratic egotism of his youth behind, he becomes painfully aware of his lost innocence and the new sense of responsibility and regret that has taken its place. Clever and wonderfully written, This Side of Paradise is a fascinating novel about the changes of the Jazz Age and their effects on the individual. It is a complex portrait of a versatile mind in a restless generation that reveals rich ideas crucial to an understanding of the 1920s and timeless truths about the human need for--and fear of--change. "A very enlivening book indeed, a book really brilliant and glamorous, making as agreeable reading as could be asked . . . There are clever things, keen and searching things, amusingly young and mistaken things, beautiful things and pretty things . . . and truly inspired and elevated things, an astonishing abundance of each, in THIS SIDE OF PARADISE. You could call it the youthful Byronism that is normal in a man of the author's type, working out through a well-furnished intellect of unusual critical force." --The Evening Post, 1920 "An astonishing and refreshing book . . . Mr. Fitzgerald has recorded with a good deal of felicity and a disarming frankness the adventures and developments of a curious and fortunate American youth. . . . It is] delightful and encouraging to find a novel which gives us in the accurate terms of intellectual honesty a reflection of American undergraduate life. At last the revelation has come. We have the constant young American occupation--the 'petting party'--frankly and humorously in our literature." --The New Republic, 1920

First published in 1920, This Side of Paradise marks the beginning of the career of one of the greatest writers of the first half of the twentieth century. In this remarkable achievement, F. Scott Fitzgerald displays his unparalleled wit and keen social insight in his portrayal of college life through the struggles and doubts of Amory Blaine, a self-proclaimed genius with a love of knowledge and a penchant for the romantic. As Amory journeys into adulthood and leaves the aristocratic egotism of his youth behind, he becomes painfully aware of his lost innocence and the new sense of responsibility and regret that has taken its place. Clever and wonderfully written, This Side of Paradise is a fascinating novel about the changes of the Jazz Age and their effects on the individual. It is a complex portrait of a versatile mind in a restless generation that reveals rich ideas crucial to an understanding of the 1920s and timeless truths about the human need for--and fear of--change. "A very enlivening book indeed, a book really brilliant and glamorous, making as agreeable reading as could be asked . . . There are clever things, keen and searching things, amusingly young and mistaken things, beautiful things and pretty things . . . and truly inspired and elevated things, an astonishing abundance of each, in THIS SIDE OF PARADISE. You could call it the youthful Byronism that is normal in a man of the author's type, working out through a well-furnished intellect of unusual critical force." --The Evening Post, 1920 "An astonishing and refreshing book . . . Mr. Fitzgerald has recorded with a good deal of felicity and a disarming frankness the adventures and developments of a curious and fortunate American youth. . . . It is] delightful and encouraging to find a novel which gives us in the accurate terms of intellectual honesty a reflection of American undergraduate life. At last the revelation has come. We have the constant young American occupation--the 'petting party'--frankly and humorously in our literature." --The New Republic, 1920