The Beautiful and the Damned

Written by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Narrated by Don Hagen

F. Scott Fitzgerald's second novel is a cautionary tale of reckless ambition and squandered talent set amid the glitter of Jazz-Age New York.

The novel tells the story of Anthony Patch (a 1920s socialite and presumptive heir to a tycoon's fortune), the relationship with his wife Gloria, his service in the army, and alcoholism.

At once a morality tale, a meditation on love, money and decadence, and a social document, the novel provides an excellent portrait of the Eastern elite as the Jazz Age begins its ascent, engulfing all classes into what will soon be known as Cafe Society. As with his other novels, it is a brilliant character study and an early account of the complexities of marriage and intimacy, believed to be largely based on Fitzgerald's relationship and marriage with Zelda Fitzgerald.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ascent Audio
• Release date: Sep 13, 2010
• ISBN: 9781596596702

F. Scott Fitzgerald

F. Scott Fitzgerald was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, in 1896, attended Princeton University in 1913, and published his first novel, This Side of Paradise, in 1920. That same year he married Zelda Sayre, and he quickly became a central figure in the American expatriate circle in Paris that included Gertrude Stein and Ernest Hemingway. He died of a heart attack in 1940 at the age of forty-four.