Zelda Fitzgerald: A Biography

London: Bodley Head, 1970 037001345x. First UK hardback edition First impression. VG/G. Red cloth boards with black title panel to spine strip. Gilt lettering and bands to spine strip. White dust jacket with black and white photo illustrations. Dust jacket is worn and repaired but intact and not price-clipped. Grey end papers. Page top edges are of a reddish colour.. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Includes: prologue; 4 parts; notes and sources; detailed index; illustrations. The four parts are: Southern Girl; The Twenties; Breaking Down and Going Home. Illustrations - 16 pages of B/W photo plates. Thick book - 424 pages. ."Milford is best known for her book 'Zelda Fitzgerald' about F. Scott Fitzgerald's wife Zelda Fitzgerald. The book started out as her master's thesis and was published to broad acclaim in 1970. It was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, spent 29 weeks on The New York Times best-seller list, and has since been translated into 17 languages." Source = Wikipedia. The author has interviewed many of the people who knew Zelda best and also draws on hundreds of previously unpublished letters, as well as an unfinished novel of Zelda's. Zelda Sayre began as a Southern beauty, became an international wonder, and died by fire in a madhouse. With her husband she moved in a golden aura of excitement, romance, and promise. The epitome of the Jazz Age, together they rode the crest of the era: to its collapse and their own. From years of exhaustive research, Nancy Milford brings alive the tormented, elusive personality of Zelda and clarifies as never before her relationship with` Scott Fitzgerald. This biography traces the inner disintegration of a gifted, despairing woman, torn by the clash between her husband's career and her own talent. .