Flappers and Philosophers (Fitzgerald Francis Scott); Arcturus, 2020

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote numerous short stories alongside his novels, the best known of which is of course The Great Gatsby. Flappers and Philosophers includes some of Fitzgerald's earliest short stories, all published in 1920 and covering a number of themes to which he would return in other stories and in some of his novels. They were written at a time when Fitzgerald's life seemed all promise and he had yet to endure the money and health problems that plagued his later life, and led to his premature death.

There are eight stories, including one of his most famous, "Bernice Bobs Her Hair". Other stories in this volume are "The Offshore Pirate" where the protagonist falls in love with the pirate who captured her; "Head and Shoulders", the tale of a couple who undergo a role reversal; and "The Cut-Glass Bowl" that is the recurring feature through various difficult or tragic events endured by a New York couple. The collection dates from the beginning of Fitzgerald's career and reveals an American society on the verge of jumping wholeheartedly into the brilliance of the "Jazz Age".