F. Scott Fitzgerald on Authorship assembles Fitzgerald's public and private writings on his trade and craft. The 46 selections in this volume construct an autobiographical account of Fiztgerald's 20-year endeavour to maintain careers as a commercial writer and as a literary artist. In a substantial introduction to the volume, Matthew J. Bruccoli positions Fitzgerald as a case history for the profession-of-authorship approach to American literary history as formulated by William Charvat. Bruccoli challenges familiar myths about Fitzgerald's squandering of fortunes and literary genius, and he exposes the error of segregating Fitzgerald's magazine and movie work from his novels. In his own words, Fitzgerald corrects the most condescending and irksome notion about him - that he was a literary ignoramous who wrote brilliantly without knowing what he was doing. As these letters, notebook entries, book reviews and articles indicate, Fitzgerald reached usable conclusions about the craft of writing, the discipline of authorship and the obligations of literature.
