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TLS signed in pencil, “Scott,” three pages, 8.5 x 11, April 4, 1936. Letter to his literary agent Harold Ober, sending his story 'The Pearl and the Fur' and requesting an advance amidst financial hardship. In full: "I think you will like this story. If you do I hope that the following will be convenient. Let me explain first. Things having reached a stale-mate here with Zelda I am moving her on the advice of several doctors to a new environment, a sanitarium in Asheville, where I will probably again have to pass the summer. I plan to make the trip immediately now that I have finished this story and am planning to leave on Tuesday night. If you feel pretty confident of this story can you advance me $200 which will enable me to make the transfer to Asheville? It will have to be done with the aid of a trained nurse as she is still in a most dangerous and violent condition.
When the story sells, and I feel confident it will, I should also like to count on $2000 of the proceeds. Perhaps on the next story, which I will start on reaching Asheville (or rather when I hear from you as to whether they like this one and want me to continue with the Gwen stories or quit them) you could deduct $1500 per story until we are square. If this is accepted it will take a load off my mind indeed. Will you wire me your opinion of this story and let me know about the $200 advance? If your wire is favorable, my address from Wednesday on will be The Grove Park Inn, Asheville, North Carolina, for several weeks, and will you wire me there about the Post decision and the deposit of further money?
As to your letter of March 30, I hadn't wanted to revise 'I'd Die for You' because I suppose the suicide theme pretty well damns it, but I gave it to young Bill Warren and told him if he could do anything about it I'd split with him. However, he has a play opening in New York this month and has been too absorbed to do anything with it as yet, if he ever will. So far as I'm concerned it's dead.
As to the Gwen story for the Post I felt more hopeful and am rather surprised that you had no bidders. Who has seen it? Can you get me any opinions on it? I don't think it is first rate but it has good things in it and somebody ought to like it. My morale has improved lately and I do hope this new Post story sells to keep it up. Scottie sends her best." In very good to fine condition, with somewhat irregular light toning, loss to one corner tip, and professionally repaired edge tears.
'The Pearl and the Fur' was one of four stories F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote for a planned series about a father and his daughter. The daughter, Gwen, was modeled on his own child, Scottie, and Fitzgerald hoped the series would achieve the same success as his earlier Basil and Josephine stories, which had run in The Saturday Evening Post from 1928 to 1931. In 1935 and 1936 he completed four Gwen stories: the Post accepted two but rejected the others and advised him to abandon the project, feeling the pieces were rushed and overly dependent on strained plots. During this time, his literary agent Harold Ober was effectively acting as both editor and collaborator, since the manuscripts often arrived in unsalable condition. His response to the draft of 'The Pearl and the Fur' included a list of 29 suggested revisions. Although the Post rejected 'The Pearl and the Fur,' the story was sold to the Pictorial Review, along with 'Make Yourself at Home,' for a combined $3500.
Following various stints of institutionalization during the early 1930s, Fitzgerald's wife Zelda's condition continued to decline. In 1936, Scott placed her in the Highland Hospital in Asheville, North Carolina, and wrote to friends: 'Zelda now claims to be in direct contact with Christ, William the Conqueror, Mary Stuart, Apollo and all the stock paraphernalia of insane-asylum jokes…For what she has really suffered, there is never a sober night that I do not pay a stark tribute of an hour to in the darkness.' The minimum monthly fee at Highland was $240, thus Fitzgerald's request for a $200 advance. During this period, his financial situation was increasingly strained. Writes biographer Matthew J. Bruccoli: 'By the summer of 1936 Fitzgerald owed Scribner's $9000, and his debt to Ober had reached $11,000. Ober's business, like most others, was suffering from the Depression. He had two sons to educate and was concerned about the mounting total. It did no good to explain that he could not keep advancing money; Fitzgerald continued to wire desperate pleas for $50 or $100 when his bank account was overdrawn.'
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