F. Scott Fitzgerald Gives A Book to His Mother (and Uses It As A Coaster?)

*Through The Wheat*, front cover of first edition belonging to Mollie McQuillan Fitzgerald

Recently a first edition of Thomas Boyd's 1923 novel Through the Wheat was listed for sale by a rare books company specializing in Americana. Boyd wrote his novel in 1921-22, while he was running the Kilmarnock Bookstore and working as a journalist in St. Paul, at a time when he'd become good friends with F. Scott Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald read Boyd’s drafts and offered suggestions, and helped him get Scribner’s to publish it. Fitzgerald also logrolled for his friend’s book when he reviewed it for the New York Evening Post in 1923. You may read more about Boyd here, and his novels are well worth reading, if you aren’t familiar with his writing.

In their listing of the book, the dealer described it thus: “Spine somewhat dull, some rubbing at the tips, ownership inscription on front endsheet (‘Mrs. E. Fitzgerald’), large and faint ringmarks on upper cover[.]” Noting that only 1000 copies of the first edition were printed, the writeup mentioned and quote from Fitzgerald’s review: “One of the most significant of American novels about the Great War, based on Boyd’s own experience as a Marine in the battles of Bois de Bellau de la Brigade des Marins, Soissons, Champagne, and elsewhere. When he reviewed the book on its first appearance, F. Scott Fitzgerald asserted: ‘To my mind this is not only the best combatant story of the great war, but also the best war book since ‘The Red Badge of Courage.’”

Fitzgerald’s mother, Mollie McQuillan Fitzgerald, was also Mrs. Edward Fitzgerald. This was her book. However, the ownership inscription in this copy of Through The Wheat is not in her handwriting, but in that of her son. I, and several other Fitzgerald scholars who have seen this inscription, all agree. It is known from his letters that Fitzgerald obtained several copies of Boyd’s novel, and sent them to Edmund Wilson and H.L. Mencken, among others. It is my belief that this was Fitzgerald’s own copy — those certainly are circles on the front cover from a wet drinking glass having been set down on it, which strikes me as something Mollie Fitzgerald would never have done — and that he later wrote his mother’s name in the front, and sent or gave it to her.

Here’s a little sample of Scott’s handwriting, should you wish to compare the two yourself. The moral of this little story: always think about who might have written in the front of another person’s book, and why….