An Apprehension of Splendor

"At the 2017 gathering of the biannual F. Scott Fitzgerald Society meeting in St. Paul, Minnesota, a member of the society, Shawn Sudia-Skehan, was asked to mount an exhibit of approximately 60 rare and never-before-published photographs of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Zelda Fitzgerald, and their daughter, Scottie. Sudia-Skeehan had shared many of the photographs, the fruits of her own avocational research, with the noted Fitzgerald scholars Jackson R. Bryer and Kirk Curnutt, who are respectively the president and executive director of the Fitzgerald Society. They were astonished by what Sudia-Skehan had found: a wealth of candid images that seemed to be entirely new to even the most seasoned Fitzgerald scholars and researchers. The exhibit was a tremendous success, and shortly thereafter both Dr. Bryer and Dr. Curnutt contacted the Press to suggest that we work with Sudia-Skehan on the publication of these newly discovered images. The author had, in fact, discovered almost twice as many as were exhibited at the conference, by combing through archives at Princeton University, the University of South Carolina libraries, Yale University's Beinecke Library, the Alabama Department of Archives and History, and a number of other institutional repositories. A number of the images had been overlooked or buried; many others came from the archives of close friends and associates of the Fitzgeralds whose own papers had never been scrutinized specifically for photographs of the Fitzgeralds. These are intimate, candid, and personal photographs, from the childhoods of both Scott and Zelda through their teenage years, the tumultuous years of their marriage both in the United States and abroad, and through their daughter Scottie's birth and emergence into adulthood. The original conception of the book was for a simple selection of 80 to 120 photographs accompanied by the author's captions. But as the project evolved through multiple drafts and the discovery of many more new and rare photographs, along with the clear need for more detailed contextualization to make sense of each image in the larger arc of the Fitzgeralds' lives, the project evolved into a true pictorial biography of the trio. The Press now plans to publish a book of approximately 300 photographs. Of those, 180 have never before been published. Most of the others have appeared occasionally, but rarely. As Jackson Bryer noted in his review of the latest draft, "she includes almost none of the iconic Fitzgerald photos with which we are all familiar." Because the author is neither a credentialed scholar, critic, or historian, but rather a deeply committed avocational student of the Fitzgeralds' art and lives, Drs. Bryer and Curnutt have reviewed and advised Sudia-Skehan at each stage of the project's development, correcting factual errors in her narrative, suggesting additional context for certain images, counseling for the inclusion of certain images and against others. With their oversight (Bryer has agreed to provide a scholarly introduction to the volume) the Press feels assured that we will be publishing a pictorial biography of these legendary figures in American letters that will be a revelation to seasoned Fitzgerald scholars, and an ideal, accessible introduction to any lay reader with an interest in learning more about these rich, complex figures and the storied lives they led"--