Flappers and Philosophers

Published soon after Fitzgerald's debut novel This Side of Paradise, Flappers and Philosophers was the author's first collection of short fiction, a form through which he had gained notoriety in newspapers and magazines. The familiar themes of aspiration and social satire already permeate his writing: in `Bernice Bobs Her Hair' the fashionable Marjorie attempts to turn her dowdy cousin into a debutante, before betraying her out of jealousy, while `The Ice Palace' features a Southern belle whose engagement to a Northerner finds her confronted with a cultural clash between tradition and modernity. Also containing `The Offshore Pirate', `Head and Shoulders', `The Cut-Glass Bowl', `Benediction', `Dalyrimple Goes Wrong' and `The Four Fists', this volume of stories illustrates the early stages of Fitzgerald's development as a writer and provides an entertaining chronicle of America in the 1910s.