Annotated below are references in Tender Is the Night that might be unfamiliar to the contemporary reader—persons, literary works, magazines and newspapers, historical events, battles, entertainers, geographical features, roads, public buildings, military units, and educational institutions. Full annotations, including identifications of many place names, are available in the Explanatory Notes (pp. 361–93) for the Cambridge Edition of the novel.
Title and epigraph: Tender Is the Night Both are from “Ode to a Nightingale” (1819) by the English poet John Keats (1795–1821).
Dedication: Gerald and Sara The wealthy and sophisticated American couple Gerald Clery Murphy (1888–1964) and Sara Sherman Murphy (1883–1975) were at the center of a group of expatriates on the French Riviera during the early and middle 1920s. Their circle included (among many others) Pablo Picasso, Archibald MacLeish, Cole Porter, Dorothy Parker, Jean Cocteau, Ernest Hemingway, and the Fitzgeralds. Dick and Nicole Diver are loosely modeled on the Murphys.
4.3 the Maures The Massif des Maures extend from Saint-Raphaël to Hyères in the western part of the French Riviera. These low, heavily forested mountains are known for their winding roads and picturesque scenery.
5.25 a pair of tights In the 1920s most men wore bathing costumes—tights to cover the legs, with jerseys for the upper body.
11.30 Antheil The American composer George Antheil (1900–1959) was known for his ultra-modern music, especially for Ballet Mécanique, a composition scored for player pianos, automobile horns, electric bells, and an airplane propeller.
17.15 the Pont du Gard . . . the Amphitheatre The Pont du Gard, near Arles, is a famous Roman aqueduct constructed in three rows of arches, one atop the other. The large Roman amphitheater at Orange, with a seating capacity of nearly nine thousand, lies a short distance north of Avignon.
18.13 Le Temps and The Saturday Evening Post Le Temps was the major newspaper of Paris. Ocean liners, arriving frequently from the United States, brought recent issues of American newspapers and popular magazines, including the New York Times and the Saturday Evening Post.
19.15 Corniche d’Or Of the three roads that run along the French Riviera, the Corniche d’Or is the one nearest the sea.
28.3 old Gaumont lot Gaumont, a French company, produced full-length movies and newsreels; it dominated the cinema industry in Europe before the First World War. The movie director Rex Ingram (1892–1950), on whom Earl Brady is based, operated a studio on the old Gaumont lot at La Turbie in the 1920s.
30.8 First National . . . Famous First National Pictures produced the first talkie (The Jazz Singer, 1927) after it had merged with Warner Brothers. Famous Players merged with the Lasky Corporation in 1916 and produced films starring Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and Rudolph Valentino.
30.22 Connie Talmadge At the height of her fame in the 1920s, Constance Talmadge (1898–1973) was paid almost $100,000 for each film in which she appeared. In January 1927 Fitzgerald was hired by United Artists to write a movie treatment for her; the movie, to be called Lipstick, was never produced.
43.30 Mrs. Burnett’s vicious tracts Fitzgerald is being ironic. The Anglo-American writer Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849–1924) was best known for the sentimental children’s books Little Lord Fauntleroy (1886) and The Secret Garden (1911).
45.9 the Riff The Riff War (also spelled Rif) was fought in 1919–1926 between Spanish forces and the Rif and Jibala tribes of Morocco. In 1925 the French joined the conflict on the side of Spain. Tommy Barban would have been involved in this final phase of the war.
47.20 Îles de Lérins Islands off the coast of Cannes. The Île Saint-Honorat is the site of a fortified medieval monastery. The prisoner in L’homme au masque de fer (1848–1850), by Dumas père (1802–1870), was held in a fortress on Île Sainte-Marguerite.
49.20 Isotta The Isotta Fraschini company manufactured deluxe, personalized limousines for the wealthy. The film stars Clara Bow and Rudolph Valentino owned Isottas.
59.13 duel in a novel of Pushkin’s Abe is likely thinking of Alexander Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin (1833), a novel in verse that contains a famous duel scene. The novel in which the duelists stand beside a cliff is Mikhail Lermontov’s A Hero of Our Time (1840).
61.13 the Odéon The Théâtre de l’Odéon, in the sixth arrondissement adjacent to the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris, was inaugurated by Marie-Antoinette in 1782.
66.18 Corps des Pages The Corps des Pages was a training school in St. Petersburg for male children from the Russian nobility. After the 1917 revolution the Corps was moved to Paris; it gave entertainments and served as a center of social life for dispossessed Russian aristocrats.
66.19 Mayfair party Parties for Hollywood stars and other celebrities were held at the Mayfair Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. This reference is an anachronism: the scene occurs in 1925, but the hotel was not built until 1926.
72.8 in Turkey . . . in Morocco A reference to the Greco-Turkish war of 1919–1922. The Treaty of Lausanne (1922) recognized the independence of the Turkish Republic. The war in Morocco is the Riff War, glossed above.
72.12 the First Marne An important early battle of the First World War, conducted September 6–12, 1914. French and British forces halted a German offensive, inaugurating a long period of trench warfare.
72.18 the Crown Prince and his fiancée . . . cafés in Valence and beer gardens in Unter den Linden and weddings at the mairie In 1905 Crown Prince Wilhelm (1882–1951), the popular heir to the German throne, married Duchess Cecilie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (1886–1954) in a spectacular public ceremony. Valence, on the left bank of the Rhône, is located sixty-five miles south of Lyon; Unter den Linden is a broad boulevard, lined with linden trees, running through the center of Berlin; a wedding at the mairie would be a civil ceremony at a French town hall.
72.21 General Grant . . . at Petersburg The last major battle of the American Civil War occurred March 25 to April 2, 1865, at Petersburg, Virginia. Union forces under Ulysses S. Grant defeated the Confederates under Robert E. Lee and ended the siege of Petersburg.
72.24 Lewis Carroll and Jules Verne . . . Undine The British writer Charles Dodgson (1832–1898) published Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) under the pen name Lewis Carroll. Jules Verne (1828–1905) was a French novelist remembered today for his early science-fiction narratives. In Undine (1811), a novel by the German Romantic writer Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué (1777–1843), the title character, a water sprite, marries a knight to gain a soul.
72.25 marraines The common translation of marraines in French is “godmothers.” During the First World War, young women who volunteered to correspond with soldiers at the front, not romantically but as friends, were called marraines.
73.12 The silver cord is cut and the golden bowl is broken Ecclesiastes 12:6–8. “Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern. / Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.”
73.17 the Newfoundland dead A memorial at Beaumont-Hamel, where Newfoundland troops incurred heavy casualties on July 1, 1916, the first day of the Somme Offensive.
74.5 the wrong number Gravestones were numbered in military cemeteries.
75.2 Yes, We Have No Bananas This popular American song, by Frank Silver and Irving Cohn, was first released in March 1923 and made popular by Eddie Cantor in his Broadway hit Make It Snappy.
76.2 Decorative Arts Exposition The Exposition Internationale des arts décoratifs et industriels modernes was held in Paris from April to October 1925. The French exhibits emphasized luxury goods, many in the Art Deco style; architectural designs by Le Corbusier and Konstantin Melnikov were also included.
86.15 Rue des Saints-Pères This picturesque Left Bank street, near the École des Beaux-Arts, was favored by antique dealers and artists—among them Édouard Manet and Amedeo Modigliani.
86.28 apache quarter An apache, in French slang of the period, was a gangster or petty criminal. The apache quarter in Montmartre was known for clubs where professional “apache dancers,” dressed as street ruffians, gave kinetic, violent performances.
88.2 Tanagra Tanagra figurines, popular during the late nineteenth century, were painted terra-cotta statuettes, usually depicting elegantly draped women.
88.15 Duncan Phyfe A style of furniture modeled after the designs of the American cabinetmaker Duncan Phyfe (1768–1854). Used on a movie set, such furniture would have suggested that the characters were from the upper bourgeoisie.
91.14 Louisa M. Alcott or Madame de Ségur Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888) wrote the children’s books Little Women (1868), Little Men (1871), and Jo’s Boys (1886). Sophie Rostopchine, Comtesse de Ségur (1799–1874), published a series of novels for children, including Pauvre Blaise (1862) and Les vacances (1865).
99.10 Major Hengist and Mr. Horsa Abe is joking. The brothers Hengist and Horsa were Jutish kings who, at the head of a force of Saxons, Angles, and Jutes, conquered much of southern England around 450 A.D.
100.1 General Pershing John J. “Black Jack” Pershing (1860–1948) commanded the American Expeditionary Forces in Europe during the First World War.
100.10 Goldberg cartoon Cartoons by Rube Goldberg (1883–1970) depicted complex, ridiculous contraptions, known as “Rube Goldberg machines,” that were supposed to perform simple tasks, such as cracking an egg.
100.33 the Halles The Halles Centrales still stand today on the Right Bank in Paris not far from the Louvre. In Fitzgerald’s time they consisted of large iron pavilions where vegetables, fruit, butter, fish, cheese, and meat were sold from hundreds of stalls. The market women in Les Halles were famous for speaking a distinctive brand of French “billingsgate.”
101.20 Saint-Sulpice The Church of Saint-Sulpice, a huge Baroque parish church on the Left Bank in Paris, catered to a wealthy and fashionable congregation.
102.1 Gare Saint-Lazare . . . the Crystal Palace This train station on the Right Bank, one of the largest such terminals in Paris, was originally erected in 1837. The Crystal Palace Exhibition took place in London in 1851.
103.22 that funny ball . . . Saint Genevieve’s Saint Genevieve is the patron saint of Paris. Her feast day, January 3, is an occasion for celebrations welcoming the new year.
108.17 Diaghileff Dick is being ironic. Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev (1872–1929), a Russian émigré, founded the Ballets Russes in Paris in 1909. He introduced many Russian dancers (among them Anna Pavlova and Vaslav Nijinsky) to Western audiences.
111.17 Grand-Guignol In the Théâtre du Grand-Guignol, on the rue Chaptal in the Pigalle section of Paris, French actors simulated macabre and gruesome spectacles—beheadings, tortures, and dismemberments. Occasional doses of Gallic sex farce were added for amusement.
113.22 Bones Skull and Bones, the oldest and most prestigious of the honorary senior societies at Yale University, was established in 1832. Gerald Murphy was a Bones man.
114.5 American Club The American Club of Paris was a gathering place for Americans in the city. Ernest Hemingway boxed there with his fellow writers Ezra Pound and Morley Callaghan.
114.20 Brentano’s A famous American bookshop on the Avenue de l’Opéra, frequented by Fitzgerald and his friends whenever they were in Paris.
115.17 heavyweight champion In 1925, the year in which this scene is set, the world heavyweight champion was the American pugilist Jack Dempsey, known as the “Manassa Mauler.”
116.5 Tarkington’s adolescents The fiction of Booth Tarkington (1869–1946) was frequently published in the Saturday Evening Post. His most popular adolescent characters appeared in the novel Seventeen (1916) and in the “Penrod” short-story collections. Fitzgerald’s Basil Duke Lee stories, published in 1928 and 1929, show influences from Tarkington.
116.8 100,000 Chemises This chain of three stores in Paris offered, as the name suggests, an enormous selection of men’s shirts. The stores were on the Rue La Fayette, the Rue de Rivoli, and the Rue de Rennes.
116.26 a church in Canossa In January 1077 the rebellious King Henry IV of the Holy Roman Empire traveled from Speyer to Canossa to seek forgiveness from Pope Gregory VII, who had excommunicated him. After waiting for three days at the pope’s gate at Canossa, fasting and wearing a hair shirt, Henry was admitted to the fortress. There he was absolved and readmitted to the church by Gregory.
118.3 Tad’s more savage cartoons The sportswriter and satirical cartoonist Thomas A. Dorgan (1877–1929) published under the pen name “Tad.” Much of his work appeared in the New York Journal. He lived in Great Neck, Long Island; Fitzgerald met him there in the early 1920s.
118.12 Eighty-fourth Division A reference to the 84th US Infantry Division, formed in 1917 and known as the Lincoln or “Railsplitter” Division. The 84th was used as a reinforcement and replacement pool during the First World War.
119.14 a lead disk To place a call on a public telephone in Paris during the 1920s, one purchased a lead disk and dropped it into the coin slot.
119.16 Cheyne-Stokes tendencies Cheyne-Stokes respiration, which can be brought on by anxiety, is marked by deeper and faster breathing than normal.
121.16 Bouché Louis Bouché (1896–1969) was an American painter trained in Paris. His early work included cubist-influenced interiors and still lifes. In the 1920s Bouché returned to the United States; some of his murals can still be seen at Radio City Music Hall in New York City.
121.30 Fouquet’s This restaurant (with bar and brasserie) on the Champs-Élysées was a favorite gathering place for celebrities, and for those who wanted to observe them.
124.29 Teput Dome A reference to the Teapot Dome Scandal of 1922–23, which took place during the administration of President Warren G. Harding. Drilling rights for oil reserves at Teapot Dome in Wyoming were transferred to the Department of the Interior, which then leased them (without competitive bidding) to oil speculators.
125.23 a Negro from Copenhagen The character Jules Petersen is based on Robert A. Gilbert (1870–1942), an African American who developed a formula for shoe polish and marketed it successfully in Stockholm (not Copenhagen). Fitzgerald knew Gilbert, who was also an accomplished photographer, in Paris during the 1920s.
126.33 Fernand A reference to the French painter Fernand Léger (1881–1955), an important early member of the cubist movement.
127.31 gold-star muzzers Gold Star Mothers were American women whose sons had been killed during the First World War.
128.8 Mosby The much romanticized John Singleton Mosby (1833–1916), known as the “Gray Ghost,” was a Confederate cavalry commander during the American Civil War. His unit, Mosby’s Rangers, was known for elusive tactics and lightning-quick raids.
129.1 Ritz bar . . . The sit-down bar for women Like many upscale establishments of the period, the Ritz maintained a separate bar for women who were unaccompanied by men.
130.1 Liberty This popular American weekly magazine, launched in 1924, claimed a circulation second only to the Saturday Evening Post. Fitzgerald published one of his best stories there—“The Sensible Thing” (July 5, 1924).
130.9 the France . . . Cherbourg This 713-foot ocean liner, the mainstay of the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique, was launched in 1912, shortly after the sinking of the Titanic. Used as a troop carrier during the First World War, the vessel returned to passenger service in 1919. Cherbourg was the principal French port for passenger liners.
130.25 bag from bag In undergraduate slang of the period, “bags” were trousers. Fitzgerald uses the same phrase in his 1925 story “A Penny Spent.”
133.20 Leonardo’s girl Fitzgerald means the Mona Lisa (ca. 1504) of Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), which hangs in the Louvre.
138.25 George the Third George III (1738–1820) was the king of England during the American Revolutionary War. Abe is kidding: The quotation about Grant is attributed to Abraham Lincoln, whom Abe is meant to resemble.
141.21 the Arbuckle case In 1921 the American film comedian Roscoe Conkling “Fatty” Arbuckle (1887–1933) was accused of raping and unintentionally killing a bit player named Virginia Rappe at a party in San Francisco. The scandal was widely covered in newspapers and magazines.
143.18 domino Nicole means the loose-fitting cloak worn with a mask, for the upper face only, at masquerade parties.
147.9 local board The military draft board in Dick’s home town. Men studying for advanced degrees, especially in medicine, were usually exempt from conscription.
147.12 Gorizia Heavy fighting between Italian and Austro-Hungarian forces took place in the hills west of Gorizia in late 1915 and early 1916. The Italians took the town in August 1916 but were pushed out in late 1917. Hemingway describes the retreat in A Farewell to Arms (1929).
147.13 the Somme and the Aisne The Somme Offensive, between July and November 1916, resulted in extraordinarily heavy casualties for the French and British. German forces made effective use of barbed wire during this action. The Second Battle of the Marne (Aisne-Marne Offensive) in July and August 1918 prepared the way for the armistice in November of that year.
148.9 Oxford Rhodes Scholar . . . Johns Hopkins Rhodes Scholarships were established in 1902 by a bequest from the will of Cecil J. Rhodes (1853–1902), a wealthy English-born businessman. The scholarships are awarded for postgraduate study at Oxford University. Johns Hopkins University, from which Dick has taken his medical degree, was the first American research university to be organized on the German model.
149.23 Thackeray’s The Rose and the Ring This Christmas fantasy, written and illustrated by William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–1863) for his daughters, satirizes the pretensions and excesses of popular Victorian literature.
149.25 Tap Day . . . Elihu On Tap Day, held each spring at Yale University, members of the junior class are selected or “tapped” for membership in the secret senior societies. Dick appears to have been tapped for Elihu, the fourth oldest of the societies, established in 1903.
150.27 Grant . . . Galena A reference to Ulysses S. Grant’s period of rustication at Galena, Illinois, where he worked for several years in a general store owned by his family. Grant (1822–85) had retired from the US Army in 1854 but was called back into service in 1861 and rose eventually to the position of Commanding General of the Union armies. He accepted the surrender of Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox in the spring of 1865, thus ending the war.
151.17 the gigantic Christ Christus Consolator, a large statue by the Danish sculptor Bertel Thorwaldsen (1770–1844), stands in the rotunda of the administration building of Johns Hopkins Hospital.
152.6 Cagliostro Alessandro, Conte di Cagliostro (1743–1795), an Italian magician, alchemist, and mesmerist whose real name was Giuseppe Balsamo, enjoyed a period of influence with the French king Louis XVI in the early 1780s.
152.8 Kraepelin The German psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin (1856–1926), an important pioneer of modern psychiatry, attributed most mental disease to biological and genetic causes. He was known for his research into a disorder that he called dementia praecox, later recategorized as schizophrenia.
154.32 the time of the Armistice The armistice that ended the First World War was called for 11:00 a.m. on November 11, 1918: the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. (See Matthew 20:1–16.)
160.1 any alienist In the 1920s an “alienist” was someone who treated mental diseases.
162.14 Göttingen Devereux Warren has attended the University of Göttingen, established in 1734 and known for its school of law.
170.27 Heinrich Pestalozzi . . . Alfred Escher . . . Zwingli Prominent figures in the history of Switzerland: Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746–1827) was an educational reformer; Alfred Escher (1819–1882) was a politician and railroad magnate; and Huldrych Zwingli (1484–1531) was a leader of the Reformation.
174.16 Suppé’s “Light Cavalry” Leichte Kavallerie, by the Austrian composer Franz von Suppé (1819–1895), was first performed in Vienna in 1866. The overture, bravura in style, features galloping rhythms and heavy brass.
179.20 St. Hilda’s in Oxford St. Hilda’s was founded as a hall for women at Oxford in 1893. It became a fully recognized college in 1926.
189.5 absent himself from felicity Hamlet in his dying speech to Horatio: “If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart / Absent thee from felicity a while, / And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain / To tell my story” (V.2.346-49).
191.2 train bands Citizen soldiers.
191.33 his confrère among the undulati A coinage derived from the wavy clouds classified as Stratocumulus Undulatus by meteorologists. Fitzgerald means the funicular operator at the upper end of the run.
192.9 the Kursaal A German word (in English, “cure room”) that came to mean a public building at a health resort.
192.11 Chillon . . . Salagnon The first reference is to the Château de Chillon near Montreux, Switzerland, the setting for Byron’s narrative poem The Prisoner of Chillon (1816). The second reference is to a white château on the Île de Salagnon, situated in Lake Geneva near Clarens.
193.1 hair, bobbed like Irene Castle’s The dance team of Vernon and Irene Castle (he British, 1887–1918; she American, 1893–1969) popularized several dances before the war, including the Turkey Trot and the Castle Walk. Irene Castle was among the first stage performers to bob her hair and wear a headband.
197.20 Vanity Fair The original Vanity Fair, published from 1913 to 1936 by Condé Nast, was a glossy magazine of fashion and style. At its peak it claimed a circulation of ninety thousand.
198.4 Poor Butterfly This song, from the musical The Big Show (1916), became extraordinarily popular during the First World War, selling more than a million copies in sheet music and more than a million phonograph discs.
205.19 Mad Anthony Wayne Wayne (1745–1796), one of the most famous of George Washington’s generals during the Revolutionary War, was known for his hot temper.
206.5 Marshall Field Field (1834–1906) founded Marshall Field and Company, a famous Chicago department store. In his heyday he was one of the wealthiest and most powerful men in the city.
207.11 the blue baby A newborn infant with a heart defect that prevents the blood from being properly oxygenated, so that the skin turns a bluish color.
207.23 Blue Grotte La Grotta Azzurra, or the Blue Grotto, is a sea cave on the island of Capri, wide enough at its mouth for a small boat to enter. The Fitzgeralds made a visit to this tourist attraction in 1926.
208.22 Ouled Naïl The Fitzgeralds attended a performance of these belly-dancing prostitutes while traveling in Algeria in February 1930. The dancers are mentioned in “ ‘Show Mr. and Mrs. F. to Number—’ ” (1934).
209.24 Mistinguett . . . Picasso . . . Pas sur la Bouche The French singer Jeanne Bourgeois (1875–1956), who performed under the stage name Mistinguett, appeared frequently at the Folies Bergère and the Moulin Rouge. At the peak of her popularity, she had her legs insured for five hundred thousand francs. Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) was already famous by the mid-1920s; he was friendly with Gerald and Sara Murphy and visited them at their home in Antibes, France. The operetta Pas sur la Bouche, by composer Maurice Yvain (1891–1965) and librettist André Barde (1874–1945), premiered in Paris in 1925.
211.10 a service stripe Enlisted soldiers in the US Army wore stripes on the left sleeve to indicate the number of years spent in the armed services.
212.5 the porphyry hills These hills, near the tourist town of La Napoule, southwest of Cannes, are composed of porphyry, a purple-red igneous rock.
213.17 belladonna . . . mandragora Belladonna, derived from the toxic plant Atropa belladonna, is administered to combat pain and motion sickness. Mandragora, of the nightshade family, is a hallucinogenic used in medicine and witchcraft.
215.8 Bon Ami The trade name for a mildly abrasive powder used to clean kitchens and bathrooms.
215.15 Luminal The barbiturate phenobarbital was marketed during the 1920s under the name Luminal. The drug was used to treat grand mal seizures.
219.11 Ciro’s menagerie The fashionable restaurant and cabaret Ciro’s, on the ground floor of the Hotel Daunou in Paris, attracted a chic clientele, many of them wealthy Americans. The syndicate that owned the establishment also operated Ciro’s restaurants in Monte Carlo and London—and later, as Dick is predicting here, in Deauville and Biarritz.
220.4 Ward McAllister Samuel Ward McAllister (1827–1895), an arbiter of New York high society during the Gilded Age, is remembered for coining the term “The Four Hundred” to refer to the number of people who should be considered as belonging to the city’s upper crust.
221.32 the Syndicat d’Initiative An organization for the encouragement of business and tourism in France.
233.4 Prokofieff’s Love for Three Oranges Sergei Prokofiev (1891–1953) based his four-act opera The Love for Three Oranges (1921) on an Italian fairy tale. The opera, in the style of the commedia dell’arte, is a comic satire incorporating elements of surrealism and magic.
235.21 ergo-therapy Therapy involving exercise and physical activity, massage and hot baths.
237.30 the Iron Maiden This torture device, dating from the late eighteenth century, consisted of an iron cabinet with a hinged door in which a person was enclosed and pierced with sharp objects such as swords or spikes.
240.33 paresis An advanced stage of syphilis characterized by dementia and paralysis.
244.1 Ägeri Fair A summer fair that took place in the area of the Ägerisee, a lake in the Swiss canton of Zug.
245.17 the buvette . . . the plaisance A buvette is a public bar where refreshments are served. A plaisance (in English, pleasance) is a secluded area laid out with walks, trees, and landscaping.
246.15 bock A dark, sweet lager with a high alcoholic content, available only in the spring.
246.27 Svengali A manipulative person of evil intent—after the character of that name in George du Maurier’s novel Trilby (1894).
247.4 corium The corium (also called the dermis) is the basal layer of the skin, containing nerves, glands, blood and lymphatic vessels, and hair follicles.
252.19 Rotarian Conventional and boosterish in character. The first Rotary Club, a civic and service organization for businessmen, met in Chicago in 1905. By 1925 Rotary claimed some two hundred chapters, mostly in the United States.
253.7 The Century, The Motion Picture, L’Illustration, and the Fliegende Blätter Titles of magazines in the United States, France, and Germany.
254.2 Marienplatz The central square of Munich, a focal point for civic celebrations and tournaments, with numerous public statues and memorials on display.
255.28 extraordinary suits . . . Beale Street This famous thoroughfare in downtown Memphis, Tennessee, was frequented by sharply dressed African Americans and famous for bars and clubs where blues music was played.
256.2 Pilsudski’s own tailor The Polish statesman Józef Klemens Pilsudski (1867–1935) led the movement for independence in that country after the First World War. In 1926 he became the de facto dictator of Poland and led its troops against the Soviet Union.
256.21 St. Mark’s School St. Mark’s (founded 1865) is an Episcopal preparatory school in Southborough, Massachusetts, some twenty-five miles from Boston.
258.4 Racquet Club . . . Harvard Club The Racquet and Tennis Club is an athletic club for men located in New York City on Park Avenue between East 52nd and 53rd Streets. The Harvard Club of New York City, at 27 West 44th Street, is for alumni and faculty of the university.
260.2 Emperor Maximilian The Hofkirche in Innsbruck, Austria, was built as a memorial to Maximilian I (1459–1519), the Holy Roman Emperor from 1493 to his death. The statue referred to here no longer stands in the city.
265.7 Westmoreland County Both George Washington and Robert E. Lee were born in Westmoreland County, in the sparsely populated Northern Neck region of Virginia. Some of the rivers in the area take their names from Indian words or tribe names—among them the Pamunkey, Chickahominy, and Mattaponi.
269.3 Corriere della Sera This daily newspaper (in English, the Evening Courier), published in Milan, claimed the largest circulation in Italy during the 1920s. The errors—“Sainclair Lewis” for Sinclair Lewis and “Wall Street” for Lewis’s novel Main Street (1920)—would perhaps have been typical for European newspapers reporting on American literature.
272.10 Edna Ferber Ferber (1885–1968), one of the most popular writers of the 1920s, won the Pulitzer Prize for her novel So Big (1924). She is remembered today for Show Boat (1926), which was made into a hit Broadway musical.
275.7 hopeful Valentinos Young actors hoping for success comparable to that of Rudolph Valentino (1895–1926), the earliest of the “Latin lover” screen idols.
275.22 on the hop Under the influence of narcotics. In drug slang, “hop” refers to opium or one of its derivatives. A “hop head” is a drug addict.
278.20 Talbot Square An elongated and picturesque square, sheltered from motor traffic, on the west side of London between Hyde Park and Paddington Station.
278.24 Michael Arlen The best-known books of Michael Arlen (1895–1956) were These Charming People (1923), a collection of stories, and The Green Hat (1924), a novel. Arlen’s heroines were outspoken and sexually adventurous.
285.1 a high-class Italian frail In American slang of the period, a “frail” was a young female associated with the criminal world, often as a prostitute or kept woman.
286.14 the Spanish Steps These steps in Rome, built in the early 1720s, connect the Piazza di Spagna with the church of Trinità dei Monti. John Keats died in a house adjacent to the Spanish Steps.
289.33 Colonna and Gaetani families Numerous religious and political leaders in the long history of Italy were members of these two noble Roman families.
290.1 Lenci dolls Expensive Italian dolls with faces made from processed felt or oil-painted porcelain. Lenci dolls were popular with collectors.
294.1 Marion Crawford The prolific American novelist F. Marion Crawford (1854–1909) wrote popular romances and adventure stories. Many of his narratives are set in Italy.
297.7 Groton voice The faux English accent typical of men who had attended Groton School, an Episcopal preparatory school in Massachusetts founded in 1884.
312.9 Wassermanns In the Wassermann test for syphilis, spinal fluid taken from the patient is introduced to the antigen cardiolipin, extracted from bovine heart or muscle.
313.12 Harrow . . . King’s College Harrow School, established in 1572, is an independent boarding school for boys in London. King’s College, Cambridge, founded by Henry VI in 1441, is one of the best known of the Cambridge colleges.
313.17 cantharides The aphrodisiac cantharides, extracted by pharmacists from various species of the blister beetle, is popularly known as Spanish Fly.
315.14 swam into his ken An allusion to Keats’s sonnet “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer,” composed in 1816. “Then felt I like some watcher of the skies / When a new planet swims into his ken . . .”
318.20 mediatized principalities Mediatized dominions (especially in Germany and the Russian Empire) were annexed to larger states, by mutual agreement, without disturbing the dynastic rights of their sovereigns.
318.21 barbital A bitter white powder used as a sleeping aid.
321.14 took up his bed and walked An echo of Matthew 9:6: “. . . then He said to the paralytic, ‘Arise, take up your bed, and go to your house.’ ”
324.27 bad cess A traditional Irish curse meaning bad luck—for example, “Bad cess on you all.”
326.28 vin de pays Inexpensive wines from particular regions of France—the Loire Valley, for example, or Provence.
331.28 in a Pullman south of Mason-Dixon Railroad cars, including Pullman sleeping cars, were racially segregated in the American South during Fitzgerald’s time. The Northern and Southern states were formally separated by the Mason-Dixon Line.
333.21 smoke A pejorative term for someone with dark skin, particularly a person of African descent.
344.31 Ronald Colman . . . Corps d’Afrique du Nord The screen star Ronald Colman (1891–1958) made a smooth transition into the talkies. In Stella Dallas (1925) he appeared as the wealthy father of Laurel Dallas—played by Lois Moran, on whom Rosemary Hoyt is based. In the reference here, Fitzgerald is thinking of two films about the French Foreign Legion in which Colman appeared: Beau Geste (1926) and Condemned (1930).
346.1 John Held’s flat-chested flappers A reference to the epicene female figures drawn by the illustrator John Held Jr. (1889–1958). Held supplied the artwork for two Fitzgerald jackets, Tales of the Jazz Age (1922) and The Vegetable (1923).
346.32 a Danny Deever monotone “Danny Deever” (1890), one of Rudyard Kipling’s best-known early poems, gives an account of the hanging of a British soldier in India. The poem, cast as a dialogue between a young soldier and an older Colour-Sergeant, is usually recited in a flat voice.
349.18 poule A “hen” in French; in slang, a derogatory word for a woman—a “chick” or “bitch.”
359.25 aquaplane A flat, curved board towed by a motorboat and ridden in a standing position. Aquaplaning was popular before the development of water skis.
361.23 Baby Gar The Baby Gar motorboat, designed by Garfield Arthur “Gar” Wood (1880–1971), was one of the fastest vessels of its time, and was often used by rumrunners bringing alcohol into the United States from Canada.
364.15 an Anita Loos heroine Fitzgerald’s readers would have thought of Lorelei Lee, the protagonist of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1925), a best-selling work of fiction by Anita Loos (1889–1981). Lorelei, uneducated but shrewd, is pliable in her morals and skilled at extracting expensive trinkets from her admirers.
367.20 the arrows flew a little in the twilight Psalm 90:5–7: “His truth shall compass thee with a shield: thou shalt not be afraid of the terror of the night. Of the arrow that flieth in the day, of the business that walketh about in the dark: of invasion, or of the noonday devil.”
369.14 Chanel Sixteen A fictitious fragrance.
371.4 Parle français Tommy is shifting to the familiar forms in French (the tu pronouns and verb conjugations), because he and Nicole are about to become intimate.
373.15 the middling-high Corniche The Moyenne Corniche runs for a little over eighteen miles along the French Riviera. The Corniche d’Or, also called the Corniche Inferieure, is located closest to the sea; it is mentioned on page 19 of the novel. The Grande Corniche or High Corniche, constructed by Napoleon I, offers spectacular views of Monaco.
375.27 Korniloff The Russian general Lavr Georgiyevich Kornilov (1870–1918) allied himself with Alexander Kerensky’s provisional government in 1917 but was later removed from command and imprisoned for attempting a coup d’état. He escaped and took command of units in the White Army, opposing the revolutionary Bolshevik forces. Tommy has apparently served as a mercenary under Kornilov.
388.20 landaulet A style of automobile with a roofed or open front seat for a chauffeur and a backseat with a convertible top.
397.11 the AP The Associated Press, a cooperative news agency, was formed originally in 1846. By 1925 its bulletins and other materials were distributed to newspapers via high-speed teletype machines.
398.3 an authenticated Hapsburg The elected Holy Roman Emperors before 1740 came from the royal house of Hapsburg (also Habsburg) as did several rulers in the Austrian and Spanish empires.
398.26 Doctor Eliot’s classics A reference to the Harvard Classics series, a fifty-one-volume set of selections from world literature, compiled by Charles W. Eliot, president of Harvard University.
402.7 like Grant’s in Galena See the annotation at 150.27.