Details
FITZGERALD, F. SCOTT. [Tender Is the Night. New York: Scribner's 1934]. Thick 8vo, unpaginated, printed on rectos only, leaves measuring 7 3/8 x 5in. (185 x 128mm.), original plain tan wrappers, typed label pasted to front cover, spine worn, light marginal dampstaining on some leaves. AN APPARENTLY UNIQUE SET OF PROOFS consisting of the unrevised Scribner's Magazine text of the novel reset in book-page format (without preliminary leaves, running heads, or pagination). Tender Is the Night first appeared in Scribner's Magazine in four installments from January to April 1934. Probably in order to expedite book publication -- the book was issued on 12 April 1934 -- someone at the publishing firm decided to reset the serial installments in book line-width gallerys. Fitzgerald, however, virtually rewrote the novel on his set of galleys for the book, making the standing type in the galley trays useless and rendering galleys of the resetting of the unrevised periodical text obsolete.
Possibly while Scribner's was waiting for Fitzgerald's revised set of galleys -- while they still thought that they could use the galleys set from the serial text -- someone made up one or more sets of these galleys in book-page format (as this copy), perhaps for promotional use. But Fitzgerald's extensive reworking of the text on his galleys made these copies (or copy) useless and discardable. Conjecturing, it is possible that someone at Scribner's then took these pages as a souvenir and had them handbound. Tender Is the Night is Connolly The Modern Movement 79.
Christie's wishes to thank Matthew J. Bruccoli, Fitzgerald bibliographer and biographer, and Jefferies Professor of English at the University of South Carolina, for his invaluable assistance in the cataloging of this item (indeed much of our description is taken almost verbatim from his report to us on this copy).
Possibly while Scribner's was waiting for Fitzgerald's revised set of galleys -- while they still thought that they could use the galleys set from the serial text -- someone made up one or more sets of these galleys in book-page format (as this copy), perhaps for promotional use. But Fitzgerald's extensive reworking of the text on his galleys made these copies (or copy) useless and discardable. Conjecturing, it is possible that someone at Scribner's then took these pages as a souvenir and had them handbound. Tender Is the Night is Connolly The Modern Movement 79.
Christie's wishes to thank Matthew J. Bruccoli, Fitzgerald bibliographer and biographer, and Jefferies Professor of English at the University of South Carolina, for his invaluable assistance in the cataloging of this item (indeed much of our description is taken almost verbatim from his report to us on this copy).