Weeks after the publication of Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman, another literary titan is getting the found-manuscript treatment: While searching through Princeton’s F. Scott Fitzgerald archives, The Strand editor Andrew Gulli discovered a copy of “Temperature,†a dark Hollywood satire Fitzgerald wrote shortly before his death. Presumed lost, the 8,000-word story tells the tale of a down-on-his-luck writer struggling with alcoholism and stalled ambition. If that seems familiar, well, the author agrees: “[A]s for that current dodge ‘No reference to any living character is intended,’†he reportedly writes, “no use even trying that.†Desperate to be published, Fitzgerald went around his agent and sent the story directly to magazines himself, but found no takers. “Temperature†now appears in the current issue of The Strand, and the literary quarterly tells Vulture it will appear in the magazine’s digital version in three months*. Get thee to a fancy newsstand!
* An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that “Temperature†would appear online. It will only appear in The Strand’s digital edition.