Published soon after Fitzgerald-s debut novel This Side of Paradise, Flappers and Philosophers was the author-s first collection of short fiction, a form through which he had gained notoriety in newspapers and magazines. The familiar themes of aspiration and social satire already permeate his writing: in -Bernice Bobs Her Hair- the fashionable Marjorie attempts to turn her dowdy cousin into a debutante, before betraying her out of jealousy, while -The Ice Palace- features a Southern belle whose engagement to a Northerner finds her confronted with a cultural clash between tradition and modernity.Also containing -The Offshore Pirate-, -Head and Shoulders-, -The Cut-Glass Bowl-, -Benediction-, -Dalyrimple Goes Wrong- and -The Four Fists-, this volume of stories illustrates the early stages of Fitzgerald-s development as a writer and provides an entertaining chronicle of America in the 1910s.
