The Crack-Up
Essay collection by F. Scott Fitzgerald
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Crack-Up is a 1945 posthumous collection of essays by American author F. Scott Fitzgerald. It includes three essays Fitzgerald originally wrote for Esquire which were first published in 1936, including the title essay, along with previously unpublished letters and notes. After Fitzgerald's death in 1940, Edmund Wilson compiled and edited them into an anthology that was subsequently published by New Directions in 1945.
 First edition cover | |
| Author | F. Scott Fitzgerald |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Essays, letters and notes |
| Publisher | New Directions |
Publication date | 1945 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 347 pp |
Essays
- "The Crack-Up" (originally Esquire magazine, February 1936)
- "Pasting It Together" (originally Esquire magazine, March 1936)
- "Handle With Care" (originally Esquire magazine, April 1936)
- collected together under the title The Crack-Up in the book
The book also includes other essays by Fitzgerald and positive evaluations of his work by Glenway Wescott, John Dos Passos, and John Peale Bishop, plus letters from Gertrude Stein, T. S. Eliot, and Edith Wharton in 1925 praising Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby.
Wilson compiled and edited the collection of Fitzgerald's essays so as to "make an autobiographical sequence which vividly puts on record his state of mind and his point of view during the later years of his life".[1]
Reception
Upon initial publication, the essays were poorly received and many reviewers were openly critical, particularly of Fitzgerald's personal revelations and his admission of his pessimistic outlook.[2]
William DuBois, writing for The New York Times Book Review, was critical of the publication of the work, and of Fitzgerald himself, describing him as "one of those artists who simply lacked the mental equipment to adjust to the demands of maturity", which DuBois believed was reflected in the essays. DuBois continued, writing that "the whole book is crammed with such yearnings" of over-sentimentalism. DuBois summarised the work by stating that "for all their inanities and juvenile posturings, for all their borrowed melancholy and half-formed wisdom, these notes are a blurred but fascinating blueprint of the development – and the breakdown – of a major literary talent".[1]
Critics have since referred to the collection as "a compelling psychological portrait and an illustration of an important Fitzgerald[ian] theme".[2]
Legacy
French philosopher Gilles Deleuze adopted and further conceptualized the term crack from "The Crack-Up" in The Logic of Sense (1969).[3] The title of the 2017 Fleet Foxes album Crack-Up was inspired by these essays.[4] Monegasque philosopher Charlotte Casiraghi published La Fêlure ("The Crack" in English) in January 2026.[5]
