Taps at Reveille.

New York: Charles Scribner's Sons,, 1935. An exceptional copy First edition, first printing, first state, with pp. 349-52 uncorrected. This was the fourth and final collection of short stories that Fitzgerald published during his lifetime and is scarce in such exceptional condition. The stories that comprise Taps were written against a backdrop of near-constant crisis for Fitzgerald. Zelda's mental health was rapidly declining, straining his financial situation and frustrating his attempts to write the novel that would become Tender is the Night. "Considering the conditions under which he was living and working after 1926, one can only be astounded that Fitzgerald continued to function at all as a writer, let alone that he managed to produce a collection as uniformly impressive as Taps at Reveille" (Petry, p. 143). It is here that "we finally see Fitzgerald at a high spiritual and artistic plateau. Though they often had been difficult, the emotional and artistic lessons of the previous fifteen years had finally led to the creation of what is arguably the most revealing and ultimately serene of F. Scott Fitzgerald's four authorized collections of short fiction" (ibid., p. 189). Bruccoli notes that the price is "rubberstamped on the front flap of some jackets" in two sizes: 3/16 in. (4.76 mm) and 1/8 in. (3.18 mm) high. This copy has the former (4.8 mm). Octavo. Original dark green cloth, spine lettered in gilt, fore edge untrimmed. With dust jacket. Housed in a green morocco-backed flat-back box. Contemporary pencil ownership inscription on front free endpaper. Spine lightly toned; a few marks and nicks to jacket, upper edges a touch rubbed, strikingly fresh. A fine copy in near-fine jacket. Bruccoli A18.1.a.1. Alice Hall Petry, Fitzgerald's Craft of Short Fiction, 1989.