Tender Is the Night

New York: Scribner, 1934. First Edition, First Printing. Signed presentation copy from F. Scott Fitzgerald to his co-screenwriter, Edward (Ted) Paramore, Jr., on the MGM film, Three Comrades, the only film on which Fitzgerald received screen credit as screenwriter, along with Paramore. Inscribed: “For Ted Paramore. In memory of those days when we used to forage in the drunken infantry under your orders. From his friend, Scott Fitzgerald. M.G.M. 1937.” This is the only known presentation copy in which Fitzgerald indicates that he actually signed it at the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio where he and Paramore wrote the screenplay. With Paramore’s bookplate on the front pastedown. Very good plus in a very good first issue dust jacket which has had restoration by an expert paper conservationist. Enclosed in a matching green cloth clamshell box. Edward Paramore Jr. (1898-1956) was a New York writer who gained acclaim with The Ballad of Yukon Jake (1928), an amusing parody of Robert W. Service, first published in Vanity Fair and then in book form with illustrations by Rockwell Kent. After having two plays produced on Broadway, Paramore was lured to Hollywood during the revolution in sound films. He had a successful screenwriting career (1929-1943) including writing The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1933) for director Frank Capra starring Barbara Stanwyck. He wrote screenplays that starred the likes of James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, Gary Cooper, Randolph Scott, Henry Fonda, Janet Gaynor, Rosalind Russell, Robert Montgomery, Joan Fontaine, Wallace Beery, Richard Dix, etc. An historic association copy from the peak of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Hollywood sojourn.