Books

First edition, first printing, first state with pages 349-52 uncorrected, of the fourth and final collection of short stories Fitzgerald published before his death in 1940. This copy is from the collection of Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts (1941-2021), reflecting his fascination with the Jazz Age, with his posthumous bookplate. The stories were written in times 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... 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" (Petry, pp. 143, 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, with no priority established; this copy has the former variant. Octavo. Original dark green linen-grain cloth, spine lettered in gilt, fore edge untrimmed. With dust jacket. Lightly bumped; spine and rear panel toned, a few tiny chips to extremities, short closed tear to front panel, unclipped: a fine copy in very good jacket. Bruccoli A18.1.a.1. Alice Hall Petry, Fitzgerald's Craft of Short Fiction, 1989.

Taps at Reveille is a collection of 18 short stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald, published in 1935. It was the fourth and final collection of short stories published by Fitzgerald.