"Better That All of the Story Never Be Told": Zelda Fitzgerald's Sister's Letters to Arthur Mizener

Abstract

Abstract:In late June 1950, Rosalind Sayre Smith, Zelda Fitzgerald's sister, sent two letters to Arthur Mizener, after Fitzgerald's daughter "Scottie" sent her the manuscript of Mizener's forthcoming Fitzgerald biography. This article for the first time publishes extensive excerpts from Smith's letters, which offer important, first-hand commentary on, among other subjects, the Sayre family, the Fitzgeralds' wedding, Zelda Fitzgerald's ballet studies, Zelda Fitzgerald's hospitalization at Highland Hospital, and the aftermath of the Fitzgeralds' ill-fated trip to Cuba in April 1939.