Book Excerpts

F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Biography

Success came swiftly to F. Scott Fitzgerald, and it was the tragedy of his life that after the popularity of his short stories and the praise he merited with The Great Gatsby, he did not mature to carry out the still bigger hooks which he sate in his mind. The causes of his failure have been sensitively analyzed by ARTHUR MIZENBR in his compassionate biography, of which this is the third and final installment. He shows the loyal encouragement which Fitzgerald received from his editor. Max Perkins; his friendships with Hemingway, Edmund W ilson. and John Peale Bishop; and what Zelda and her illness meant to the novelist. The complete book, under the title The Far Side of Paradise, will he published by Houghton Mifflin on February I.

Gladstone and Lenin

“Lenin thought that the world was governed by the dialectic, whose instrument he was; just as much as Gladstone, he conceived of himself as the human agent of a superhuman Power.” In developing the dissimilarities and the points of resemblance in these two great leaders, BERTRAND RUSSELL demonstrates that power of perception and skill in writing which qualified him for the Nobel Prize in Literature. This paper is drawn from his forthcoming hook, Unpopular Essays, which Simon and Schuster will publish in late February.

Criminals Who Get Away

As a research psychologist at Fort Leavenworth Penitentiary, DONALD P. WILSONembarked on a survey of drug addiction among criminals; it lasted three years and brought him into close and revealing association with the prisoners, particularly with those six convicts who comprised his “regular staff of assistants.” From this experience comes his new book, My Six Convicts (Rinehart), a February selection of the Rook-of-the-Month Clubfrom which the Atlantic has chosen this chapter.

The Composer's Conductor: Koussevitzky

Composer and author, NICOLAS NABOKOV began his study of music in St. Petersburg where in his impressionable years he heard the singing of Chaliapin and the playing of Rachmaninov and young Heifetz, and saw the dancing of Pavlova and Karsavina. After the Revolution, he worked in the Berlin Conservatory, and when his first balletoratorio. Ode, was produced by Diaghilev in Paris, he entered upon the creativeyears during which he teas to enjoy the friendship of Stravinsky, Prokofiev, and Koussevilzky. The paper which follows is drawn from his delightful book. Old Friends and New Music, to be published this month under the Atlantic-Little, Brown imprint.

F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Biography

With his good looks, his swift so cross, his love of parties, and his incredible spending, F. Scott Fitzgerald was the personification of “the Jazz Age.”After his novel of Princeton, This Side of Paradise, which gained him immediate popularity, he went on to write The Great Gatsby, the almost perfect expression of the Prohibition Era. But it was Fitzgerald’s tragedy that he did not mature to carry out the still bigger books which he saw in his mind. ARTHUR MIZENER has been working on a biography of Fitzgerald since 1945; in his research he has had the help of people like Edmund Wilson and Ernest Hemingway, and a Houghton Mifflin Fellowship enabled him to settle for an intense period at Princeton, where he had access to Fitzgerald’s personal papers. The Atlantic is pleased to publish an abridgment of Mr. Mizener’s book in three installments, of which this is the second.

Music Under the Generals

Composer and author, NICOLAS NABOKOV began his study of music in St. Petersburg, where in his impressionable years he heard the singing of Chaliapin and the playing of Rachmaninov and young Heifetz, and saw the dancing of Pavlova and Karsavina. After the Revolution, he worked in the Berlin Conservatory, and when his first balletoratorio, Ode, was produced by Diaghilev in Paris, he entered upon the creative years during which he was to enjoy the friendship of Stravinsky, Prokofiev, and Koussevitzky. The paper which follows is drawn from his delightful book, Old Friends and New Music, which will soon be published under the Atlantic-Little, Brown imprint.