This Side of Paradise

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1920. First Edition, First Printing. Very good. 8vo, 7 1/2 x 5 1/8 inches (190 x 130 mm); pp. vi +305; printed in 11 pt Old Style type on wove paper. Dark blue cloth binding, title dry stamped on front cover, and goldstamped on spine, top and bottom edges trimmed; no dust jacket. Hathaway armorial bookplate pasted down inside front cover, paper cracked at inside front cover and in two other places inside the book but binding is square and solid; paper evenly toned, small chip at bottom of back cover. Faded ink inscription on front endpaper.
FIRST EDITION, FIRST PRINTING, with the year 1920 on both the title and copyright pages and "Published April, 1920" and the Scribner's Seal on the copyright page, with no indication of later editions printed, and uncorrected mistakes that were edited in 4th and 7th printings (see Bruccoli, Matthew J. F. Scott Fitzgerald: a Bibliography. University of Pittsburgh Press, 1987).

[Bruccoli A 15.I.a]. Fitzgerald's debut novel examines the lives and morality of carefree American youth at the dawn of the Jazz Age, a generation largely untouched by the psychological and material horrors of World War I, and turned to hedonistic pursuits. Its protagonist, Amory Blaine, is an attractive middle-class student at Princeton University who dabbles in literature and engages in a series of romances with flappers. The novel explores the theme of love warped by greed and status-seeking, and it sparked a societal debate over their perceived immorality. This Side of Paradise was published on March 26, 1920, with a first printing of 3,000 copies. The initial printing sold out in three days. Within months of its publication, the 23-year-old author's debut novel became a cultural sensation in the United States, and F. Scott Fitzgerald became a household name. The book went through twelve printings in 1920 and 1921 for a total of 49,075 copies. This COPY is from the FIRST PRINTING.