HT Home / Blogs Home > Page Turner / Page Turner / ‘Don’t worry about disappointments’: F Scott Fitzgerald to his small daughter, Scottie

How does one advise one’s 11-year-old daughter about life? How did one of the 20th century’s greatest writers advise his little girl?

Taken from a 1933 letter from F Scott Fitzgerald to his 11-year-old daughter, Scottie, here is a list of things the father thought the daughter should “worry about, not worry about, and simply think about.” I cam across this on the Guardian’s website. Read the full piece, and the list.

As the Guardian points out – and as any admirer of Scott Fitzgerald’s will not fail to notice – ”is the light they cast on Fitzgerald’s own misgivings and motivations. ‘Don’t worry about failure,’ Fitzgerald advises his daughter, ‘unless it comes through your own fault’; this from the author whose wife had recently been hospitalised for schizophrenia in part induced by their turbulent marriage, and who was himself a year away from publishing Tender is the Night, a novel steeped in and driven by the most profound personal and matrimonial failure.”

(3 votes, average: 3.67 out of 5)

 Loading ...