Flappers and Philosophers was published in 1920 on the heels of Fitzgerald’s sensational debut, This Side of Paradise, and anticipated themes in The Great Gatsby. This iconic collection marks the writer’s entry into short fiction, and contains some of his most famous early stories, including “Bernice Bobs Her Hair,” “The Ice Palace,” “Head and Shoulders,” and “The Offshore Pirate.” In these pages we meet Fitzgerald’s trademark characters: the beautiful, headstrong young women and the dissolute, wandering young men who comprised what came to be called the Lost Generation. With their bobbed hair and dangling cigarettes, his characters are sophisticated, witty, and, above all, modern: the spoiled heiress who falls for her kidnapper, the intellectual student whose life is turned upside-down by a chorus girl, the feuding debutantes whose weapons are cutting words and a pair of scissors. An instant classic in its time, a confirmed part of the canon today, this collection evokes 1920s America through the eyes of a writer indelibly linked to that singular era.
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