The Last Tycoon
The Last Tycoon is an unfinished novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald. In 1941, it was published posthumously under this title, as prepared by his friend Edmund Wilson, a critic and writer.[1] According to Publishers Weekly, the novel is "generally considered a roman à clef", with its lead character, Monroe Stahr, modeled after film producer Irving Thalberg.[2] The story follows Stahr's rise to power in Hollywood, and his conflicts with rival Pat Brady, a character based on MGM studio head Louis B. Mayer.
For other uses, see The Last Tycoon (disambiguation).Editor
Neely
English
November 4, 1941 (posthumously)
United States
Print (hardback & paperback)
163 (paperback edition)
813/.52 20
PS3511.I9 L68 1993
Tender Is the Night (1934)
It was adapted as a TV play in 1957 and a film in 1976 of the same name, with a screenplay for the motion picture by British dramatist Harold Pinter. Elia Kazan directed the film adaptation; Robert De Niro and Theresa Russell starred.
In 1993, a new version of the novel was published under the title The Love of the Last Tycoon, edited by Matthew Bruccoli, a Fitzgerald scholar. This version was adapted for a stage production that premiered in Los Angeles, California, in 1998. In 2013, HBO announced plans to produce an adaptation. HBO cancelled the project and gave the rights to Sony Pictures, which produced and released the television series on Amazon Studios in 2016.
Publication history[edit]
The novel was unfinished and in rough form at the time of Fitzgerald's death at age 44. The literary critic and writer Edmund Wilson, a close friend of Fitzgerald, collected the notes for the novel and edited it for publication. The unfinished novel was published in 1941 as The Last Tycoon, by which name it is best known.
In 1993, another version of the novel was published under the title The Love of the Last Tycoon, as part of the Cambridge edition of the Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald, edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli, a Fitzgerald scholar. Bruccoli reworked the extant seventeen chapters of the thirty-one planned according to his interpretation of the author's notes. At least one reviewer considered Bruccoli's work to be a "remarkable feat of scholarship" and notes that it "restored Fitzgerald's original version and has also restored the narrative's ostensible working title, one that implies that Hollywood is the last American frontier where immigrants and their progeny remake themselves."[2]
Point of view[edit]
Fitzgerald wrote the novel in a blend of first person and third person narrations. While the story is ostensibly told by Cecilia, many scenes are narrated in which she is not present. Occasionally a scene will be presented twice, once through Cecilia and once through a third party.[3]
Awards[edit]
The revised edition of The Love of The Last Tycoon won the Choice Outstanding Academic Books award of 1995.