About this item
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, originally published in Colliers Magazine on May 27th, 1922. The story follows Benjamin's life from his birth in 1860. However he is no ordinary child, as he has the appearance of a 70 year old man, already capable of speech. His family soon realizes that Benjamin is aging in reverse, becoming younger as the years go by. The fascinating story looks at his triumphs and struggles as he slowly gains his youth. Adding in themes of love and acceptance, F. Scott Fitzgerald details the difficulties and feelings of not fitting into ones designated age group in an entertaining and insightful manor.
About the Author
F. Scott Fitzgerald was born in 1896 in St Paul, Minnesota, and went to Princeton University which he left in 1917 to join the army. Fitzgerald was said to have epitomised the Jazz Age, an age inhabited by a generation he defined as 'grown up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken'.In 1920 he married Zelda Sayre. Their destructive relationship and her subsequent mental breakdowns became a major influence on his writing. Among his publications were five novels, This Side of Paradise, The Great Gatsby, The Beautiful and Damned, Tender is the Night and The Love of the Last Tycoon (his last and unfinished work) : six volumes of short stories and The Crack-Up, a selection of autobiographical pieces.Fitzgerald died suddenly in 1940. After his death The New York Times said of him that 'He was better than he knew, for in fact and in the literary sense he invented a "generation" ... he might have interpreted them and even guided them, as in their middle years they saw a different and nobler freedom threatened with destruction.'
