The Far Side of Paradise

The Far Side of Paradise
First US edition (1951)
AuthorArthur Mizener
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
SubjectF. Scott Fitzgerald
GenreBiography
PublisherHoughton Mifflin (United States), Eyre & Spottiswoode (United Kingdom)
Publication date
1 January 1951[1]
Awards1952 National Book Award for Nonfiction (Finalist)[1]

The Far Side of Paradise: A Biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald is a biography of writer F. Scott Fitzgerald written by Arthur Mizener. Published in 1951 by Houghton Mifflin in the US and Eyre & Spottiswoode in the UK, it was the first published biography of Fitzgerald[2] and is credited with renewing public interest in its subject.[3] It dealt frankly with Scott's alcoholism and his wife Zelda's schizophrenia.

The Far Side of Paradise alludes to the title of F. Scott Fitzgerald's first novel, This Side of Paradise, which was published in 1920.

Publication history[edit]

The biography was published in two significant editions. The first edition was published in 1951,[1] while the second edition was published in 1965.[4] In the second edition, Mizener notes that 'a good deal of published and of unpublished information about Fitzgerald has accumulated' since the 1951 edition. This resulted in Mizener having to rewrite the 'last two chapters' of the book in order to include the story of Fitzgerald's affair with Sheilah Graham, after the publication of Graham's memoir Beloved Infidel, and to 'include all the new information [...], published and unpublished, that is now available to me'.[5]

Reception[edit]

Despite being noted by Mizener in the foreword for the first edition that he would not have 'attempted to write the book without the approval and help of Mr. Edmund Wilson, who has given more time to my problems that I like to remember,'[5] Wilson, a literary critic and close friend of the Fitzgeralds, later commented that the book's anecdotes distorted Scott and Zelda's relationship and personalities for the worse.[6]

Budd Schulberg of The New York Times wrote in 1988 that the 'important' biography was 'timely, scholarly, but never dull'. He went on to add that: 'Mizener makes credible the almost incredible life of a man who had the world at his feet when he was 25 and at his throat when he was 40.'[3]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c "The Far Side of Paradise: A Biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald by Arthur Mizener". Goodreads. 2023. Retrieved 26 October 2023.
  2. ^ Flanagan, John T. (1951). "Review of The Far Side of Paradise: A Biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald". Minnesota History. 32 (2): 115–117. JSTOR 20175604.
  3. ^ a b "Arthur Mizener, 80, Critic Who Wrote Work on Fitzgerald". The New York Times. 15 February 1988. Retrieved 21 October 2018.
  4. ^ "The Far Side of Paradise: A Biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald by Arthur Mizener". Goodreads. 2023. Retrieved 2 November 2023.
  5. ^ a b Mizener, Arthur (2021). The Far Side of Paradise: A Biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald. London: Lume Books. p. i-iii. ISBN 9781839013355.
  6. ^ Edmund Wilson on F. Scott Fitzgerald
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