“Such Friends”: 100 Years Ago, April 3, 1922, Biltmore Hotel, 271 West 47th Street, New York City, New York

Happy second wedding anniversary to popular novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald, 25, and his lovely bride, Zelda, 22.

They are celebrating with yet another party, this time at the Biltmore where they spent their honeymoon.

Biltmore Hotel

In New York for the past few weeks for publication of Scott’s second novel, The Beautiful and Damned, the Fitzgeralds are now preparing to go back to his hometown, St. Paul, Minnesota, and their five-month old daughter, Scottie, who has been staying with his family.

There has been a lot to celebrate. Scott is trying his hand at playwriting, spending the last few months writing The Vegetable:  From Postman to President, which he is convinced will make him rich for life.

Fitzgerald has sold the movie rights to The Beautiful and Damned to Warner Brothers for $2,500. Although he thinks that’s an awfully small price.

Sales of the novel are going well. There have been some negative reviews, but the most positive one appeared in the New York Tribune yesterday—by Zelda.

In “Friend Husband’s Latest,” she pronounced the book “absolutely perfect”; the character based on her, “most amusing”; and urged readers to buy the book because she will get a platinum ring and the “cutest” $300 gold-cloth gown. The only thing that bothers Zelda is that her old diary has disappeared and some passages in the novel sound awfully familiar. She figures “friend husband” believes that “plagiarism begins at home.”

Ha ha. Except that Zelda isn’t kidding. And she isn’t pregnant anymore.

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the series, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s. Volumes I and II covering 1920 and 1921 are available as signed copies at Riverstone Books in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, PA, and also in print and e-book formats on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk. For more information, email me at kaydee@gypsyteacher.com.

In June I will be talking about the Stein family salons in Paris just before and after the Great War at Carnegie-Mellon University’s Osher Lifelong Learning program.

Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is also available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk in both print and e-book versions.

If you want to walk with me through Bloomsbury, you can download my audio walking tour, “Such Friends”:  Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group.

“Such Friends”: 100 Years Ago, Good Friday, April 2, 1920, New York City, New York

Zelda Sayre, 19, gets off the train in New York City, with her sister, Marjorie Brinson, 34, for the first time in her life. Waiting for them at Pennsylvania Station is one of their other married sisters, Rosalind Smith, 31, and Zelda’s fiancée, the hot new first-time novelist, F. Scott Fitzgerald, 23.

Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald

Scott and Zelda met less than two years ago when he was stationed at Camp Sheridan, the Army base near her home in Montgomery, Alabama. They’ve been writing and dating ever since, but she had rejected his numerous proposals:  Until Charles Scribner’s Sons offered to publish Fitzgerald’s first novel, This Side of Paradise.

Scott had been told that sales of 5,000 copies for a first novel would be considered a success. Paradise sold 20,000 in its first week.

The three Sayre sisters have booked into the Biltmore Hotel to rest and get ready for tomorrow’s wedding at noon in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, just blocks away from the groom’s publisher, Scribner’s.

The plans and guest list are simple. Bridal couple, best man, Rosalind as matron of honor. Zelda’s two sisters—Marjorie and Clothilde Palmer, 29—and their husbands who will come in from Tarrytown tomorrow. That’s it.

Zelda and Scott will honeymoon here at the Biltmore. The bride has a new dark blue suit and a bouquet of orchids. She’s confident that “Goofo,” as she calls her intended, will have made some arrangements for a luncheon. Or at least a cake…

Postcard for the Biltmore Hotel

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the book, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s, to be published by K. Donnelly Communications. For more information, email me at kaydee@gpysyteacher.com.

In 2020 I will be talking about literary salons in Ireland, England, France and America, before and after the Great War, in the University of Pittsburgh’s Osher Lifelong Learning program.

Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins relationships with Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe is available on Amazon in both print and Kindle versions.

If you want to walk with me through Bloomsbury, you can download my audio walking tour, “Such Friends”: Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group.