Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Price: US$500.00 + shipping
Description: 92 pp. Folio, publisher's cloth-backed decorated boards. First edition. Neat ink name to front board; rear board lacking (and the text detached from the front board); neat tape repairs to inner front hinge. The spine cloth is intact. Very good or better. Book by Edmund Wilson, Jr. Lyrics by F. Scott Fitzgerald, '17. Only edition of this scarce publication, preceding This Side of Paradise.
Seller: Jeffrey H. Marks, Rare Books, ABAA, Rochester, NY, U.S.A.
Price: US$2500.00 + shipping
Condition: Good
Description: Second Princeton Triangle Club show, for which Fitzgerald wrote all lyrics. Book by E. Wilson Jr., music by Paul B. Dickey and F. Warburton Guilbert. Preceded This Side of Paradise. Grey stiff cardboard paper wraps, spince covered in ornage cloth, with orange and black illustration. Light dirt smudging on cover and slight bumping and chipping of edges. Bruccoli A4.
Seller: Sumter Books (Manly, Inc.), Columbia, SC, U.S.A.
F. Scott Fitzgerald. The Evil Eye. The John Church Company, 1915.
Price: US$3000.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: First edition. Fitzgeralds second work for the Princeton University Triangle Club. A bit of foxing and creasing to the boards. Two little traces of damp stain at the bottom of to the front board. The rear hinge split but the contents firmly intact, nice and crisp internally. Overall a very good, unrestored example of this scarce title. Though he was socially and intellectually ambitious at Princeton, Fitzgerald was a largely indifferent student from the start. He joined the Triangle Club after he was cut from the football team his freshman year. Fitzgerald would write the lyrics for three shows at the club, but was not allowed to performed in any of them as his poor grades prohibited him from partaking in extracurricular activities. He did not graduate with the class of 17, and instead left Princeton to join the army and finish writing This Side of Paradise.
Seller: Canton Books, Princeton, NJ, U.S.A.
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Evil Eye. The John Church Company, Cincinnati, New York, London, 1915.
Price: US$4725.00 + shipping
Condition: Good
Description: FITZGERALD'S OWN COPY? E. Wilson Jr. (book), F. Scott Fitzgerald (lyrics), Paul B. Dickey and F. Warburton Gilbert (music). Cincinnati, New York, London: The John Church Company, 1915. Folio (11 15/16" x 9 1/4", 303mm x 235 mm: : pp. 1-2 (title, contents) 3-92. Bound in the publisher's pictorial paper over boards, backed in orange tape. Presented in a quarter dark brown morocco clamshell box with "FITZGERALD'S COPY" gilt in the fifth panel. Both boards cracked vertically, partly split. Some losses at the corners. On the back cover, a dampstain. On the upper edge of the inside back cover, "F. Scott Fitzgerald lyrics" in pencil (with the first couple of characters initially in blue pencil). F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) was not the most successful of students. His occupation at Princeton, when he was not barred from participation on account of his grades, was mainly social, journalistic and theatrical. The Triangle Club was then the university's largest dramatic organization and, putting aside some instances of drag, Fitzgerald's principal role was lyricist. Princeton's major role in Fitzgerald's life was principally to incubate his literary talents. Pieces for the Nassau found their way into This Side of Paradise, but sadly Fitzgerald's musical efforts ended in New Jersey. The Evil Eye was the Triangle Club's 1915-1916 production. The tunes are jaunty and the tales are mostly of love lost and found. The Evil Eye also marks the early collaboration of Fitzgerald and Edmund Wilson (book); Wilson reviewed Fitzgerald's work before publication; Fitzgerald called Wilson his "intellectual conscience." It is difficult to assess the pencil marking in the rear of the book. If this is in fact Fitzgerald's own copy, it is a relic of considerable magnitude in his church. The signature on the inside cover appears plausibly to be in Fitzgerald's hand. Princeton holds his copies of Safety First!, which was the 1916-1917 Triangle musical, and so it is at least plausible that he saved others of his lyrical efforts. Bruccoli A3.
Seller: Arader Books, New York, NY, U.S.A.