Fitzgeralds second novel a devastating portrait of the excesses of the Jazz Age is a largely autobiographical depiction of a glamorous reckless Manhattan couple and their spectacular spiral into tragedy. Published on the heels of This Side of Paradise the story of the Harvard-educated aesthete Anthony Patch and his willful wife Gloria is propelled by Fitzgeralds intense romantic imagination and demonstrates an increased technical and emotional maturity. The Beautiful and Damned is at once a gripping morality tale a rueful meditation on love marriage and money and an acute social document. As Hortense Calisher observes in her Introduction Though Fitzgerald can entrance with stories so joyfully youthful they appear to be safe-- when he cuts himself you will bleed.
