Exceedingly rare ALS, one page, 8 x 10.5, postmarked September 23, 1925. Addressed from Rue de Tilsitt in Paris, a handwritten letter to Miss Lane Pride, in full: "Thank you for your most kind and cordial letter — I think that my first books must have antagonized a lot of people because I know that so many approached them with suspicion and hostility; for the first months there were hardly any sales at all, and until Mencken spoke for it the reviews were angry and childish. Now of course, it has become a best seller. Let me tell you how much I appreciate your writing to me — and how much I hope that future books won't send you scurrying back to your original opinion." The letter has been tastefully dry-mounted to a same-size cardstock sheet, and in fine condition, with light rippling, and a light stain to the upper right. Accompanied by the front mailing panel from the original envelope, which has been addressed in Fitzgerald's hand.
After enduring a general sense of rejection and disdain from critics for his previous works, Fitzgerald finally found favor with the 1925 release of The Great Gatsby, which, as Fitzgerald alludes, was perhaps aided by H. L. Mencken’s review in the Chicago Sunday Tribune. Interestingly, Mencken, whom Fitzgerald deeply admired as a writer and editor, didn't offer a glowing review of the new book. While he commended Fitzgerald’s writing skills — ‘The sentences roll along smoothly, sparklingly, variously. There is evidence in every line of hard and intelligent effort’ — Mencken conversely called the novel a ‘glorified anecdote.’ He wrote: ‘This story is obviously unimportant and, though, as I shall show, it has its place in the Fitzgerald canon, it is certainly not to be put on the same shelf with, say, This Side of Paradise. What ails it, fundamentally, is the plain fact that it is simply a story—that Fitzgerald seems to be far more interested in maintaining its suspense than in getting under the skins of its people.’
Despite Mencken’s lukewarm review, the book sold well, perhaps due to how the novel deviated from his past works, including This Side of Paradise, The Beautiful and Damned, and Tender is the Night, all of which gravitated around themes of marriage, intimacy, and the evils of a decadent lifestyle. According to his editor, Maxwell Perkins, Fitzgerald saw the novel as a ‘purely creative work — not trashy imaginings as in my stories but the sustained imagination of a sincere and yet radiant world.’ The fresh perspective he poured into his opus slowly turned a previously scorned perception into one of long-awaited literary acclaim: “Let me tell you how much…I hope that future books won’t send you scurrying back to your original opinion.” A historical, unparalleled handwritten letter from Fitzgerald, dated in the year of the publication of what many consider to be ‘The Great American Novel.’ Fitzgerald letters, typed or handwritten, with content relative to The Great Gatsby, are of the utmost rarity and desirability.
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