Compiled and published after Fitzgerald’s death by his friend, the prominent critic and editor Edmund Wilson, The Crack-Up is a collection of writings that chronicle the author’s state of mind and personal perspective on events, fellow writers and public figures of the 1920s and 1930s. In addition to articles and essays such as the celebrated title piece, this volume includes a selection of Fitzgerald’s notebooks, which – as well as being a repository of anecdotes and witty lines – provide a fascinating behind-the-scenes glimpse into the novelist’s creative process, with passages that would be reworked into his fiction.

An entertaining and eclectic miscellany that sheds light on the author and his times, The Crack-Up is an invaluable companion to such well-known works as The Great Gatsby and Tender Is the Night.