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f scott fitzgerald

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F. Scott Fitzgerald is widely acclaimed as being one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century, but little has been known about his own personal choice of literature.

A list containing 22 books that F. Scott Fitzgerald thought were essential reading has just come to light, which the author of The Great Gatsby dictated to his nurse while convalescing in a North Carolina hotel in 1936.

The hard-drinking F. Scott Fitzgerald was battling alcoholism, and struggling financially.

The writer’s wife, Zelda, had recently been admitted to the nearby psychiatric Highland Hospital in Asheville.

It was a dark time for the 40-year-old.

Esquire had recently published his essay The Crack Up, in which F. Scott Fitzgerald stated “my life had been a drawing on resources that I did not possess, that I had been mortgaging myself physically and spiritually up to the hilt”.

That summer he had fractured his shoulder while diving into the hotel swimming pool.

According to Michael Cody, at the University of South Carolina’s F. Scott Fitzgerald’s website, he had also fired a revolver in a suicide threat.

F. Scott Fitzgerald is widely acclaimed as being one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century

F. Scott Fitzgerald is widely acclaimed as being one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century

It was after this incident that the hotel where he was staying in Asheville, the Grove Park Inn, refused to let him continue living there unless he had a nurse to look after him.

Michael Cody states: “He was attended thereafter by Dorothy Richardson, whose chief duties were to provide him company and try to keep him from drinking too much.

“In typical Fitzgerald fashion, he developed a friendship with Miss Richardson and attempted to educate her by providing her with a reading list.”

According to website Open Culture, which published the list, at the top of the page, Dorothy Richardson had written: “These are books that Scott thought should be required reading.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s essential reading:

1. Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
2. The Life of Jesus by Ernest Renan
3. A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen
4. Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson
5. The Old Wives’ Tale by Arnold Bennett
6. The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
7. The Red and the Black by Stendhal
8. The Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant
9. An Outline of Abnormal Psychology edited by Gardner Murphy
10. The Stories of Anton Chekhov
11. The Best American Humorous Short Stories
12. Victory by Joseph Conrad
13. The Revolt of the Angels by Anatole France
14. The Plays of Oscar Wilde
15. Sanctuary by William Faulkner
16. Within a Budding Grove by Marcel Proust
17. The Guermantes Way by Marcel Proust
18. Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust
19. South Wind by Norman Douglas
20. The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield
21. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
22. John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley: Complete Poetical Works

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The 66th Cannes Film Festival will be opened by Baz Luhrmann’s adaptation of The Great Gatsby, starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

Based on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 classic novel, Toby Maguire and Carey Mulligan also star.

Baz Luhrmann – whose debut film Strictly Ballroom was screened at Cannes 21 years ago – said the festival had “always been so close to our hearts”.

His new film will be shown on May 15 at the Grand Theatre Lumiere of the Palais des Festivals.

“F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote some of the most poignant and beautiful passages of his extraordinary novel just a short distance away at a villa outside Saint-Raphael,” Baz Luhrmann said in a statement.

The Great Gatsby was scripted by Baz Luhrmann and co-writer Craig Pearce, who worked together eight-time Oscar nominated film, Moulin Rouge. That film also opened the Cannes Film Festival in 2001.

The 66th Cannes Film Festival will be opened by Baz Luhrmann's adaptation of The Great Gatsby, starring Leonardo DiCaprio

The 66th Cannes Film Festival will be opened by Baz Luhrmann’s adaptation of The Great Gatsby, starring Leonardo DiCaprio

Leonardo DiCaprio, who stars as the tragic romantic Jay Gatsby, last worked with the director on his 1996 film Romeo + Juliet, for which Baz Luhrmann won a BAFTA for best screenplay and best direction.

The actor is returning to Cannes for the first time since he presented the 2007 ecological documentary, The 11th Hour, which he produced.

The Great Gatsby features songs by Jack White and rapper Jay-Z – who is also due to attend the opening at Cannes.

It will also be screened in 3D – only the second time in the history of the festival a film has been shown in the format after Pixar’s Up opened in 2009.

The film had been due for release last Christmas but was pushed back by Warner Bros to ensure it “reaches the largest audience possible”.

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