Tales of the Jazz Age

Tales of the Jazz Age, by F. Scott
Fitzgerald

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Title: Tales of the Jazz Age
Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
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TALES FROM THE JAZZ AGE
BY
F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
1922

A TABLE OF CONTENTS
MY LAST FLAPPERS
THE JELLY-BEAN
This is a Southern story, with the scene laid in the small Lily of
Tarleton, Georgia. I have a profound affection for Tarleton, but
somehow whenever I write a story about it I receive letters from all
over the South denouncing me in no uncertain terms. "The Jelly-Bean,"

published in "The Metropolitan," drew its full share of these
admonitory notes.
It was written under strange circumstances shortly after my first novel
was published, and, moreover, it was the first story in which I had a
collaborator. For, finding that I was unable to manage the crap-shooting
episode, I turned it over to my wife, who, as a Southern girl, was
presumably an expert on the technique and terminology of that great
sectional pastime.
THE CAMEL'S BACK
I suppose that of all the stories I have ever written this one cost me the
least travail and perhaps gave me the most amusement. As to the labor
involved, it was written during one day in the city of New Orleans,
with the express purpose of buying a platinum and diamond wrist
watch which cost six hundred dollars. I began it at seven in the morning
and finished it at two o'clock the same night. It was published in the
"Saturday Evening Post" in 1920, and later included in the O. Henry
Memorial Collection for the same year. I like it least of all the stories in
this volume.
My amusement was derived from the fact that the camel part of the
story is literally true; in fact, I have a standing engagement with the
gentleman involved to attend the next fancy-dress party to which we
are mutually invited, attired as the latter part of the camel--this as a sort
of atonement for being his historian.
MAY DAY.
This somewhat unpleasant tale, published as a novelette in the "Smart
Set" in July, 1920, relates a series of events which took place in the
spring of the previous year. Each of the three events made a great
impression upon me. In life they were unrelated, except by the general
hysteria of that spring which inaugurated the Age of Jazz, but in my
story I have tried, unsuccessfully I fear, to weave them into a pattern--a
pattern which would give the effect of those months in New York as
they appeared to at least one member of what was then the younger

generation.
PORCELAIN AND PINK.
"And do you write for any other magazines?" inquired the young lady.
"Oh, yes," I assured her. "I've had some stories and plays in the 'Smart
Set,' for instance------"
The young lady shivered.
"The 'Smart Set'!" she exclaimed. "How can you? Why, they publish
stuff about girls in blue bathtubs, and silly things like that"
And I had the magnificent joy of telling her that she was referring to
"Porcelain and Pink," which had appeared there several months before.
FANTASIES
THE DIAMOND AS BIG AS THE RITZ.
These next stories are written in what, were I of imposing stature, I
should call my "second manner." "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz,"
which appeared last summer in the "Smart Set," was designed utterly
for my own