Leading F. Scott Fitzgerald Scholar Dr. James L. W. West III presents the 2nd Annual McDermott Fitzgerald Lecture

Dr. James L.W. West III will present the second annual, McDermott Fitzgerald Lecture with a special presentation titled “Editing Mr. Fitzgerald.”

Hosted by Fitzgerald in Saint Paul, the organization dedicated to celebrating the works of F. Scott Fitzgerald, the event will be held at the University Club in Saint Paul, on Saturday, November 5 at 7:00 p.m. (doors open at 6:00 p.m.). The event is free and open to the public, and seating is first-come, first-served.

Dr. James L.W. West III is an internationally recognized authority on the works of Fitzgerald, having spent nearly his entire academic career since 1970 tracing the details of both Fitzgerald’s complex biography and verifying his extensive bibliography (including 5 novels and over 150 short stories).  West is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of English at Penn State University. He is a biographer, book historian, and scholarly editor. His books include The Perfect Hour: The Romance of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ginevra King published by Random House (2005).  West serves as the overall series editor the Cambridge Edition of the complete works of F. Scott Fitzgerald.   When West took on the monumental task of serving as the series editor for the Cambridge Edition of the works of F. Scott Fitzgerald, the author was already acknowledged as among the foremost American writers of the twentieth century. Yet, there was no accurate, definitive or authoritative collection of Fitzgerald’s complete works.

Since early 2000, when West delivered the first complete edition of Trimalchio: An Early Version of The Great Gatsby, he has overseen the subsequent release of 15 other Cambridge Edition volumes of Fitzgerald’s writing.  The most recent book, A Change of Class, featuring Fitzgerald’s short stories on the theme of “earned and unearned privilege” and its impact on American character, appeared in July, 2016.  The final volume in the series, titled Last Kiss, is slated for release in March, 2017.  Of special interest to Fitzgerald fans locally was the Cambridge Edition volume that appeared in 2010, Spires and Gargoyles, Fitzgerald’s writings from 1909 to 1919, which provided a definitive collection of the early writing Fitzgerald produced in his youth, with many events and stories occurring in Saint Paul.  

West has identified one of the key challenges of producing a definitive edition of an author’s works:  discovering and verifying what F. Scott Fitzgerald actually wrote, not what his editors, compositors or typesetters thought he had written. Early in his role as editor, West determined that to find Fitzgerald’s true intentions, he would have to carefully pare away and remove the “house editorial styling” imposed by Maxwell Perkins and other Scribner’s editors. This has meant spending countless hours searching through library archives and publisher’s files for the earliest, handwritten “holographs” of each and every chapter, poem or Fitzgerald short story. In doing so, West has made many interesting discoveries about the author’s methods and meanings, which he will share during his talk.

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The McDermott Fitzgerald Lecture is produced annually in memory of Fitzgerald in Saint Paul’s founder, Dr. Richard P. McDermott, who restored and then lived in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s birthplace on Laurel Avenue in Saint Paul.  McDermott was a professor in the University of Minnesota’s Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences until 1991, before becoming Saint Paul’s unofficial “ambassador for all things Fitzgerald.” Prior to his death in September 2012, Dick McDermott established a fund for celebrating the “history and artistic work of F. Scott Fitzgerald,” to preserve Fitzgerald’s legacy in Saint Paul. The non-profit organization Fitzgerald in Saint Paul was established to carry out McDermott’s vision, and presents the McDermott-Fitzgerald Lecture annually as an opportunity for Fitzgerald enthusiasts to hear leading literary scholars discuss the author’s works.  In June, 2017, Fitzgerald in Saint Paul will host the 14th International Fitzgerald Conference, at the campus of St. Scholastica in downtown Saint Paul.   For more information on Fitzgerald in Saint Paul, please visit www.fitzgeraldinsaintpaul.org.