The Crack-Up

The Crack-Up is a 1945 posthumous collection of essays by American author F. Scott Fitzgerald. It includes three essays Fitzgerald originally wrote for Esquire which were first published in 1936, including the title essay, along with previously unpublished letters and notes. After Fitzgerald's death in 1940, Edmund Wilson compiled and edited them into an anthology that was subsequently published by New Directions in 1945.

The Crack-Up
First edition cover
AuthorF. Scott Fitzgerald
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
GenreEssays, letters and notes
PublisherNew Directions
Publication date
1945
Media typePrint (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages347 pp

Essays
  • "The Crack-Up" (originally Esquire magazine, February 1936)
  • "Pasting It Together" (originally Esquire magazine, March 1936)
  • "Handle with Care" (originally Esquire magazine, April 1936)
collected together under the title The Crack-Up in the book

The book also includes other essays by Fitzgerald and positive evaluations of his work by Glenway Wescott, John Dos Passos, and John Peale Bishop, plus letters from Gertrude Stein, T. S. Eliot, and Edith Wharton in 1925 praising Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby.

Legacy

Upon initial publication, the essays were poorly received and many reviewers were openly critical, particularly of Fitzgerald's personal revelations and his admission of his pessimistic outlook. Critics have since referred to the collection as "a compelling psychological portrait and an illustration of an important Fitzgerald[ian] theme".[1]

French philosopher Gilles Deleuze adopted and further conceptualized the term crack from "The Crack-Up" in The Logic of Sense.[2]

The title of the 2017 Fleet Foxes album Crack-Up was inspired by these essays.[3]

References
  1. Bitonti, Tracy Simmons (12 May 2005). "The Crack-Up". Facts about Fitzgerald. Archived from the original on 12 May 2008. Retrieved 15 June 2007.
  2. Tynan, Aidan (2012). Deleuze's Literary Clinic: Criticism and the Politics of Symptoms. Edinburgh University Press. p. 42. ISBN 9780748650576.
  3. Fleet Foxes - Robin Pecknold Interview with Zach Cowie


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