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www.sodyaudio.com Narrated by Shane Sody additional voice: Victor Sody Artwork by Angelo Crespo www.cg-quest.com This recording copyright 2008 Shane Sody THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON By F. Scott Fitzgerald (1921) Chapter Running time 1 12.51 2 4.39 3 8.35 4 4.47 5 7.38 6 2.34 7 4.35 8 5.15 9 5.03 10 5.46 11 9.03 Total 70.58 THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON This story was originally published in 1921, in the magazine Collier's. It was republished in 1922 in a collection of F. Scott Fitzgerald's stories Tales of the Jazz Age. Fitzgerald said, of the four "fantasy" short stories in that volume, that they were written for his own amusement. About Benjamin Button, he wrote: This story was inspired by a remark of Mark Twain's to the effect that it was a pity that the best part of life came at the beginning and the worst part at the end. By trying the experiment upon only one man in a perfectly normal world I have scarcely given his idea a fair trial. Several weeks after completing it, I discovered an almost identical plot in Samuel Butler's "Note-books." The story was published in "Collier's" last summer and provoked this startling letter from an anonymous admirer in Cincinnati: "Sir-- I have read the story Benjamin Button in Colliers and I wish to say that as a short story writer you would make a good lunatic I have seen many peices of cheese in my life but of all the peices of cheese I have ever seen you are the biggest peice. I hate to waste a peice of stationary on you but I will." Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born in 1896 to an upper-middle class Roman Catholic family. Fitzgerald spent his childhood partly in St Paul, and partly in Buffalo, New York. He attended Princeton University from 1913, dropping out to enlist in the US Army in 1917. However, World War I ended before he was due to be shipped to Europe. His life-long sweetheart, Zelda Sayre, agreed to marry him after his first novel This Side of Paradise was published in 1920. Although Fitzgerald's passion lay in writing novels, they never sold well enough to support the opulent lifestyle that he and Zelda adopted as New York celebrities. To supplement his income, he also wrote short stories for magazines. He was constantly in financial trouble and often required loans from his associates. He spent the second half of the 1930s in Hollywood, working on short stories, scripts for MGM, and his fifth novel, which he did not complete. Fitzgerald became notorious during the 1920s for his heavy drinking, which, together with his smoking habit, eventually affected his health. He died on 21 December, 1940.
Transcript of Chapter Running time
www.sodyaudio.com
Narrated by Shane Sody additional voice: Victor Sody
Artwork by Angelo Crespo www.cg-quest.com
This recording copyright 2008 Shane Sody
THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON By F. Scott Fitzgerald (1921)
Chapter Running time
1 12.51
2 4.39
3 8.35
4 4.47
5 7.38
6 2.34
7 4.35
8 5.15
9 5.03
10 5.46
11 9.03
Total 70.58
THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON This story was originally published in 1921, in the magazine Collier's. It was republished in 1922 in a collection of F. Scott Fitzgerald's stories Tales of the Jazz Age. Fitzgerald said, of the four "fantasy" short stories in that volume, that they were written for his own amusement. About Benjamin Button, he wrote:
This story was inspired by a remark of Mark Twain's to the effect that it was a pity that the best part of life came at the beginning and the worst part at the end. By trying the experiment upon only one man in a perfectly normal world I have scarcely given his idea a fair trial. Several weeks after completing it, I discovered an almost identical plot in Samuel Butler's "Note-books." The story was published in "Collier's" last summer and provoked this startling letter from an anonymous admirer in Cincinnati:
"Sir--
I have read the story Benjamin Button in
Colliers and I wish to say that as a short
story writer you would make a good lunatic I
have seen many peices of cheese in my life but
of all the peices of cheese I have ever seen
you are the biggest peice. I hate to waste a
peice of stationary on you but I will."
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born in 1896 to an upper-middle class Roman Catholic family. Fitzgerald spent his childhood partly in St Paul, and partly in Buffalo, New York. He attended Princeton University from 1913, dropping out to enlist in the US Army in 1917. However, World War I ended before he was due to be shipped to Europe. His life-long sweetheart, Zelda Sayre, agreed to marry him after his first novel This Side of Paradise
was published in 1920. Although Fitzgerald's passion lay in writing novels, they never sold well enough to support the opulent lifestyle that he and Zelda adopted as New York celebrities. To supplement his income, he also wrote short stories for magazines. He was constantly in financial trouble and often required loans from his associates. He spent the second half of the 1930s in Hollywood, working on short stories, scripts for MGM, and his fifth novel, which he did not complete. Fitzgerald became notorious during the 1920s for his heavy drinking, which, together with his smoking habit, eventually affected his health. He died on 21 December, 1940.
