The work that signaled Fitzgerald's maturity as a storyteller and novelist, The Beautiful and Damned is a devastating portrait of the excesses of the Jazz Age. Anthony Comstock Patch is a Harvard-educated gallant who leisurely aspires to author a book as he awaits an enormous inheritance upon his grandfather's death. Gloria is a sparkling young socialite and a rare beauty. Patch's impassioned marriage to Gloria is fueled by alcohol and consumed by greed. The dazzling couple race through a series of alcohol-induced fiascoes -- first in hilarity, and later in despair. The Beautiful and Damned is a piercing and tragic depiction of New York nightlife, reckless ambition, squandered talent, and the faux aristocracy of the nouveaux riches. Published in 1922 on the heels of Fitzgerald's first novel, This Side of Paradise, it gives evidence to the sharp social insight and breathtaking lyricism of one of the most important American writers of the twentieth century.