The Rich Boy
Encyclopedia
The Rich Boy is a short story by American
writer F. Scott Fitzgerald
. It was included in his 1926 collection All the Sad Young Men
.
.
, while awaiting publication of The Great Gatsby
. He revised it in his apartment at 14 Rue de Tilsitt in Paris the following spring, at what he described as a period of "1000 parties and no work." By May 28, 1925, he wrote his literary agent, Harold Ober
, that the story was "at the typist." Five weeks later, he sent his editor Max Perkins
a proposed list of stories for his third collection, describing "The Rich Boy" as "Just finished—serious story and very good."
classmate Ludlow Fowler, who'd stood as best man at Fitzgerald's wedding. Fitzgerald sent Fowler the story before publication, explaining, "I have written a 15,000 word story about you called The Rich Boy—it is so disguised that no one except you and me and maybe two of the girls concerned would recognize, unless you give it away, but it is in large measure the story of your life, toned down here and there and simplified. Also many gaps had to come out of my imagination. It is frank, unsparing but sympathetic and I think you will like it—it is one of the best things I have ever done." Fowler requested excisions that Fitzgerald made before the story was collected in All the Sad Young Men the following year.
Fitzgerald's friend the writer Ring Lardner
—dedicee of All the Sad Young Men—was such an admirer he told Fitzgerald he wished he could have expanded the story to novel length. Fitzgerald wrote Max Perkins this "would have been absolutely impossible."
Bruccoli also notes the story contains Fitzgerald's "most promiscuously misquoted sentence: 'They are different from you and me.'" Fitzgerald's actual passage runs, "Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand. They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves." The story's first lines are also, as Bruccoli points out, among the author's most famous: "Begin with an individual, and before you know it you find that you have created a type; begin with a type, and you find that you have created--nothing. That is because we are all queer fish, queerer behind our faces and voices than we want any one to know or than we know ourselves. When I hear a man proclaiming himself an 'average, honest, open fellow,' I feel pretty sure that he has some definite and perhaps terrible abnormality which he has agreed to conceal."
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
writer F. Scott Fitzgerald
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was an American author of novels and short stories, whose works are the paradigm writings of the Jazz Age, a term he coined himself. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. Fitzgerald is considered a member of the "Lost...
. It was included in his 1926 collection All the Sad Young Men
All the Sad Young Men
All the Sad Young Men is the third collection of short stories written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, published by Scribners in February 1926.-Composition:Fitzgerald wrote the stories at a time of disillusionment...
.
Original publication
"The Rich Boy" originally appeared in two parts, in the January and February 1926 issues of RedbookRedbook
Redbook is an American women's magazine published by the Hearst Corporation. It is one of the "Seven Sisters", a group of women's service magazines.-History:...
.
Composition
Fitzgerald wrote "The Rich Boy" in 1924, in CapriCapri
Capri is an Italian island in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the Sorrentine Peninsula, on the south side of the Gulf of Naples, in the Campania region of Southern Italy...
, while awaiting publication of The Great Gatsby
The Great Gatsby
The Great Gatsby is a novel by the American author F. Scott Fitzgerald. First published in1925, it is set on Long Island's North Shore and in New York City from spring to autumn of 1922....
. He revised it in his apartment at 14 Rue de Tilsitt in Paris the following spring, at what he described as a period of "1000 parties and no work." By May 28, 1925, he wrote his literary agent, Harold Ober
Harold Ober
Harold Ober 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 such authors as Jack London and H. G. Wells. In 1929, he opened his...
, that the story was "at the typist." Five weeks later, he sent his editor Max Perkins
Maxwell Perkins
William Maxwell Evarts Perkins , was the editor for Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Thomas Wolfe. He has been described as the most famous literary editor.-Career:...
a proposed list of stories for his third collection, describing "The Rich Boy" as "Just finished—serious story and very good."
Summary
The Fitzgerald scholar Matthew Bruccoli describes the story as "an extension of The Great Gatsby, enlarging the examination of the effects of wealth on character." The story of Anson Hunter and his love for the "dark, serious beauty" Paula Legrande, Fitzgerald modeled the "Rich Boy" of his title on PrincetonPrinceton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
classmate Ludlow Fowler, who'd stood as best man at Fitzgerald's wedding. Fitzgerald sent Fowler the story before publication, explaining, "I have written a 15,000 word story about you called The Rich Boy—it is so disguised that no one except you and me and maybe two of the girls concerned would recognize, unless you give it away, but it is in large measure the story of your life, toned down here and there and simplified. Also many gaps had to come out of my imagination. It is frank, unsparing but sympathetic and I think you will like it—it is one of the best things I have ever done." Fowler requested excisions that Fitzgerald made before the story was collected in All the Sad Young Men the following year.
Fitzgerald's friend the writer Ring Lardner
Ring Lardner
Ringgold Wilmer Lardner was an American sports columnist and short story writer best known for his satirical takes on the sports world, marriage, and the theatre.-Personal life:...
—dedicee of All the Sad Young Men—was such an admirer he told Fitzgerald he wished he could have expanded the story to novel length. Fitzgerald wrote Max Perkins this "would have been absolutely impossible."
Critical response
In The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Bruccoli calls the story "Fitzgerald's most important novelette" and "one of Fitzgerald's major stories." Bruccoli continues,
"'The Rich Boy' is a key document for understanding Fitzgerald's much-discussed and much-misunderstood attitudes toward the rich. He was not an envious admirer of the rich, who believed they possessed a special quality. In 1938 he observed: 'That was always my experience—a poor boy in a rich town; a poor boy in a rich boy's school; a poor boy in a rich man's club at Princeton...I have never been able to forgive the rich for being rich, and it has colored my entire life and works.' He knew the lives of the rich had great possibilities, but he recognized that they mostly failed to use those possibilities fully. He also perceived that money corrupts the will to excellence. Believing that work is the only dignity, he condemned the self-indulgent rich for wasting their freedom."
Bruccoli also notes the story contains Fitzgerald's "most promiscuously misquoted sentence: 'They are different from you and me.'" Fitzgerald's actual passage runs, "Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand. They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves." The story's first lines are also, as Bruccoli points out, among the author's most famous: "Begin with an individual, and before you know it you find that you have created a type; begin with a type, and you find that you have created--nothing. That is because we are all queer fish, queerer behind our faces and voices than we want any one to know or than we know ourselves. When I hear a man proclaiming himself an 'average, honest, open fellow,' I feel pretty sure that he has some definite and perhaps terrible abnormality which he has agreed to conceal."