Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda

Drawing together selected letters and photographs between 1918 (when they first met at a country club dance) and 1940 (the year of his death) this collection details the passionate and often traumatic relationship between F Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda. Many of the letters have been published previously, but this is the first time they've been gathered together in one volume, which is enhanced by an introduction from the couple's granddaughter, Eleanor Lanahan. Their well-documented and often sensationalized troubles are revisited here in a much more sympathetic light, and the chronologically arranged correspondence allows us to experience the high-profile courtship and marriage from the viewpoint of the two central characters, who were as often in conflict with each other as they were besotted. In particular, the mental illness and alcoholism that plagued Zelda and Scott respectively are considered more in terms of the diseases they are, and not some kind of weakness or badness, an attitude that permeated many previous biographies of the couple, from which neither emerged particularly favourably. Another criticism - that he repeatedly used Zelda's words to enhance his own writing - is also considered, and the letters here contain examples of her delightful prose that would find their way into his own. Zelda and Scott's love informed much of what they wrote, and - especially in the early years of their relationship - they lived the 1920s high life that his writing captured so memorably, until the early joy faded and 'the fairytale ended' in 1930, the year of her first breakdown. Sometimes the parade of 'darling' and 'dearest' grates, leaving the reader with that awkward feeling often experienced when witnessing first-hand the gushings of an enamoured couple, but overall this is a warm and compassionate look at two people and their 'deep but tormented love'. (Kirkus UK)