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The University of South Carolina's Thomas Cooper Library has acquired 2,000 pages of F. Scott Fitzgerald's manuscripts, revised typescripts and working drafts for the screenplays he wrote for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer from 1937 - 38. This previously unknown archive, the largest assemblage of Fitzgerald manuscripts offered for sale at one time, clarifies the distorted record of his Hollywood work and provides evidence for his seriousness as a screenwriter. During his 18 months on the MGM payroll, Fitzgerald worked on three major screenplay assignments: "Three Comrades," for which he received his only screen credit; "Infidelity," intended for Joan Crawford but cancelled because the subject of adultery was considered inappropriate in 1938; and "The Women," which was rewritten by Anita Loos and Jane Murfin before production. Budd Schulberg, the last writer to have collaborated with Fitzgerald on a movie assignment, remembers Fitzgerald's determination to develop his screen-writing skills. Schulberg, who later wrote the Academy Award-winning screenplay for "On the Waterfront," said, "Unlike all the famous Eastern writers who came to Hollywood to replenish lost fortunes and �take the money and run,' Fitzgerald regarded the motion pictures a unique 20th-century art form that demanded as serious attention as their novels and plays." Dr. Patrick Scott, university librarian for rare books and special collections, said reading these manuscripts is like discovering a new Fitzgerald novel.
Dr. Matthew J. Bruccoli, the leading Fitzgerald authority, said the new documentary evidence "fills the largest gap in our knowledge of Fitzgerald's career and his professionalism. It will yield long-term benefits for teaching and research." After two independent, professional appraisals and recent auction results, the collection was purchased for $475,000 from private funds including an initial $100,000 contribution from an anonymous USC alumnus. The remainder was loaned to the library by the USC Research Foundation and the USC Educational Foundation and is expected to be paid back with private contributions. Facts and figures about USC's library collections The University of South Carolina's libraries have some of the outstanding modern American literature collections in the country. Within the last 10 years, the Thomas Cooper Library's Department of Rare Books and Special Collections has added, through gift and purchase, more than 20 significant collections. Chartered in 1801, USC is the state's flagship research university and has the state's only nationally ranked research library. Top USC modern American literature collections
The Matthew J. & Arlyn Bruccoli Collection of F. Scott Fitzgerald constitutes the most comprehensive research collection for the study of Fitzgerald and those associated with him. Initiated by Dr. Matthew J. Bruccoli as a student in the late 1940s, the collection was built in subsequent decades with the encouragement of his wife, Arlyn, and of Fitzgerald's daughter, Scottie. In 1994, the Bruccolis committed their collection (then conservatively valued at $1.2 million) to USC's Thomas Cooper Library under a multi-year gift-purchase agreement. Over the past 10 years, the Bruccolis have donated additional material to this and other special collections at Thomas Cooper Library with an appraised value in excess of $1.9 million.
Manuscripts and proofs: the only unrevised galley proofs for Fitzgerald's "Trimalchio" (subsequently rewritten as The Great Gatsby), the galley proofs for the first serial installment of "Tender Is the Night" and revised typescripts of "The Swimmers," "The Count of Darkness," and "The Kingdom in the Dark," together with Fitzgerald's pocket notebook for "The Love of the Last Tycoon." Letters: more than 100 letters, including letters to his early mentor Shane Leslie; his editor, Maxwell Perkins; his agent, Harold Ober; his wife, Zelda; and his daughter, Scottie. Inscriptions: more than 40 books inscribed by Fitzgerald as well as books inscribed to him by such authors as James Joyce, T. S. Eliot, John Dos Passos, Gertrude Stein and Ernest Hemingway. Scripts and adaptations: copies of Fitzgerald's own screenplays, together with other writers' adaptations of his work for stage, screen, radio and television. Juvenilia and Princetoniana: runs of the school and Princeton magazines for which he wrote, acting scripts for the three Triangle Club shows he wrote at Princeton and Princeton yearbooks. Photos and memorabilia, including the only photo of Hemingway inscribed to Fitzgerald, the engraved silver flask that Zelda and her friends gave him in October 1918 when he was scheduled to embark for France and his briefcase. Writings by Zelda Fitzgerald, including manuscript material and publications by and about her. Materials on Fitzgerald's friends and associates: satellite collections for Ernest Hemingway, Ring Lardner, Edmund Wilson, Budd Schulberg, Sheilah Graham, Donald Ogden Stewart, the House of Scribners and other Scribners authors. The Fitzgerald Collection now USC has been committed to building its F. Scott Fitzgerald Collection, adding significant items since its original transfer. Among the items added since 1994:
Bruccoli, the Emily Jefferies Professor of English at USC, has been quoted on many occasions as saying "great collections attract great collections" and that "strength begets strength." The Matthew J. and Arlyn Collection of F. Scott Fitzgerald, as the nexus of USC's American literature library holdings, has played a significant role in attracting other major modern American literary collections. These notable collections include the Speiser & Easterling-Hallman Collection of Ernest Hemingway; the Joseph Heller Papers; the James Dickey Library and collection of his writing; and the literary archives of John Jakes, James Ellroy and George V. Higgins. Bruccoli and his wife, Arlyn, have supported these acquisitions by the donation of their own substantial collections of Joseph Heller, James Dickey, George V. Higgins and other writers. American writers on the F. Scott Fitzgerald MGM archive acquisition Budd Schulberg, novelist, screenwriter, and Fitzgerald collaborator: "Ever since I heard about the 2,000 pages of F. Scott Fitzgerald's screen-writing material from the MGM Studio files in Culver City, California, I have been excited at the opportunity for Fitzgerald scholars and devoted admirers to gain new insights into the final phase of his distinguished and haunted career. "Having seen the extensive and richly rewarding Scott Fitzgerald collection that you have installed at the University Library, and knowing you to be the indefatigable and devoted keeper of the Fitzgerald legacy you are, I heartily extend to you all possible support in your endeavor to acquire this newfound treasure in the MGM archives and add it to the wondrous collection of Fitzgeraldiana you have acquired for the Library of the University of South Carolina." John Jakes, novelist: "The acquisition is important to the teaching and study of Fitzgerald now and for decades to come. Understanding an author's process is fundamental to understanding his finished work, and that's especially true of this �Hollywood Period,' much of which is still befogged in rumor and half truth. Seeing how the author worked while he harnessed his genius to the studio system would be invaluable. "It's no secret that I look on Fitzgerald as the No. 1 American writer of the 20th century. I've held that view ever since �The Great Gatsby' was taught in my freshman English class at Northwestern. In graduate school, I made American literature my field of concentration and would have thrilled to the opportunity to study these particular pages." George Garrett, writer and professor emeritus at the University of Virginia: "What a catch! This is a really huge contribution to the study of American literature and, as well, for the rapidly growing field of film studies. Scholars, critics and students will be using this material for many years to come." R.H.W. Dillard, novelist, poet and director of the writing program at Hollins College: "What a treasure trove for Fitzgerald scholars, for scholars of American literature, for film scholars and for young writers striving to learn the art and craft of the screenplay! "To have Fitzgerald's screenplays, in various drafts, finally available for study would shed much-needed light on his approach to screen writing, about which we already know a good deal but nowhere near as much as we will now have the opportunity to know with the actual texts in hand. The opportunity for film scholars and apprentice screenwriters to be able, say, to compare Fitzgerald's version of �The Women' both to the Clare Boothe Luce play and to the final screenplay credited to Anita Loos and Jane Murfin would be of great value even beyond the opportunity to see Fitzgerald at work. And that is just one example I could offer among many as to the practical value of this collection of manuscripts. "The possibility that I might actually have the opportunity to see and read and use the manuscripts themselves overwhelms me." (Images provided by USC's Thomas Cooper Library)
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"You can see him putting his mind to the story and characters as a novelist and then thinking cinematically about them," Scott said. 
Major components of the collection at the time of the original transfer