The Cut-Glass Bowl

"It was astonishing to think that life had once been the sum of her current love-affairs. It was now the sum of her current problems."

-F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Cut-Glass Bowl (1920)

The Cut-Glass Bowl (1920), by F. Scott Fitzgerald, was first published in Scribner's Magazine and later in his short story collection, Flappers and Philosophers (also available from Cosimo Classics). Fitzgerald's plot focuses on the domestic strife of married couple Harold and Evylyn, and a wedding gift, the cut-glass bowl-the center of each disappointment and tragedy. Fitzgerald uses his own experiences with the excess of the Roaring Twenties and a troubled marriage to create a classic tale of family dysfunction. One of his earliest published works, this story is a preview to the themes found in many of Fitzgerald's later and more noted works such as The Great Gatsby (1925) and The Beautiful and Damned (1922).