New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1925
Arthur Mizener’s copy of the The Great Gatsby, with his bookplate on the front pastedown. First edition, second printing, with the textual errors corrected. A very good copy with faint wear to the boards and spine, the gilt still bright. A slight crack to the front hinge but the binding sound. Some offsetting to the endpapers. A beautiful copy still. Offered together with a first edition, presentation copy of The Far Side of Paradise (Cambridge: Houghton Mifflin, 1951), inscribed by the author on the first free endpaper in the year of publication. A near fine copy in a very good dust jacket with a chip to the rear panel, as well as very small closed tear to the front panel with a little neat tape reinforcement at the same point of the verso. A lovely signed example, highlighting the the outstanding provenance of the present copy of the great American novel. Arthur Mizener was a professor and literary critic, whose work significantly impacted the legacy of F. Scott Fitzgerald. The Far Side of Paradise was the very first biography written of Fitzgerald. It revived public interest in the author’s work, all but forgotten in the decades following his death. Critics at the time were either unfamiliar with his work, or remembered him as a failed writer. Fitzgerald would gradually become appreciated as one of the great American authors, and in 1960 Mizener ventured to write of The Great Gatsby: “It is probably safe now to say that this is a classic of 20th Century American fiction.”