''Taps at Reveille'' (1935) is a collection of 18 short stories by
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940) was an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. He is best known for his novels depicting the flamboyance and excess of the Jazz Age—a term he popularize ...
. It was the fourth and final collection of short stories Fitzgerald published in his lifetime. All were timed to appear a few months to a year after each of his four completed novels were published.
Contents
The eighteen stories collected in ''Taps at Reveille'' are:
Stories about Basil Duke Lee:
* "The Scandal Detectives"
* "
The Freshest Boy"
* "He Thinks He's Wonderful"
* "The Captured Shadow"
* "The Perfect Life"
Stories about Josephine Perry:
* "
First Blood
''First Blood'' (also known as ''Rambo: First Blood'') is a 1982 American action film directed by Ted Kotcheff, and co-written by Sylvester Stallone, who also stars as Vietnam War veteran John Rambo. It co-stars Richard Crenna as Rambo's mentor ...
"
* "A Nice Quiet Place"
* "A Woman with a Past"
Others
* "
Crazy Sunday
"Crazy Sunday" is a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, originally published in the October 1932 issue of ''American Mercury''.
Fitzgerald's story is set in the brutal life of the great studios of 1930s Hollywood, with their flocks of actors, writ ...
"
* "Two Wrongs"
* "The Night of Chancellorsville"
* "The Last of the Belles"
* "Majesty"
* "Family in the Wind"
* "A Short Trip Home"
* "One Interne"
* "The Fiend"
* "
Babylon Revisited"
Publication
''Taps at Reveille'' was published on March 10, 1935. The collection was dedicated to Fitzgerald's agent
Harold Ober
Harold Ober (1881–1959) was an American literary agent.
In 1907 — two years after graduating from Harvard with a degree in literature — Harold Ober became a literary agent at the Paul R. Reynolds Literary Agency. By 1908 he was representing ...
.
Reception
In
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
, critic Edith Walton gave Fitzgerald's final collection a mixed reception. "The characteristic seal of his brilliance stamps the entire book, but it is a brilliance which splutters off too frequently into mere razzle-dazzle." Citing the
Basil Duke Lee stories as "small masterpieces," Walton called
Babylon Revisited "probably the most mature and substantial story in the book. A rueful, though incompleted, farewell to the
Jazz Age, its setting is Paris and its tone one of anguish for past follies." Walton continues, "It has become a dreadful commonplace to say that Mr. Fitzgerald's material is rarely worthy of his talents. Unfortunately, however, the platitude represents truth. Scott Fitzgerald's mastery of style — swift, sure, polished, firm — is so complete that even his most trivial efforts are dignified by his technical competence. All his writing has a glamorous gloss upon it; it is always entertaining; it is always beautifully executed."
[Edith Walton, "Scott Fitzgerald's Tales," ''The New York Times'', March 31, 1935.]
References
External links
''The New York Times'' on ''Taps at Reveille''F. Scott Fitzgerald Centenary: Matthew J. Bruccoli Collection at the University of South Carolina
{{Fitzgerald
1935 short story collections
Short story collections by F. Scott Fitzgerald