In spring 1921, the 24-year old author, F. Scott Fitzgerald embarked on a three month tour of Europe with his new wife Zelda. The trip, which would last from May to July would see them loaf awkwardly through several of Europe’s most popular tourist destinations, meet several well-known people, visit a number of literary shrines…
Designs on Gatsby: Max Gerlach, Francis Cugat and F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Max von Gerlach, an associate of author F. Scott Fitzgerald, made regular trips to Havana. At one time, Havana was also the home of Francis Cugat, the Spanish-Cuban artist who designed the famous dust-jacket for Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel, The Great Gatsby. Here we explore the remarkable life of Cugat and the very faintest possibility that…
I Had a Dream – The Mysterious Death of Father Gapon
A detailed look at Father Georgy Gapon, the Russian Orthodox priest who led the Bloody Sunday Revolution in 1905 and who was brutally murdered in March 1906. This essay explores the various responses to his death and the role it may have played in the development of Russia’s Zionist and Revolutionary movements. At two o’…
Storms of a Russian Spring — Vladimir Zeev Jabotinsky, Maxim Gorky and Pinchas Rutenberg
Benzion Netanyahu, father of Binyamin Netanyahu served as chief aide and secretary to Ukrainian defence organizer, Vladimir Zeev Jabotinsky, the leader of the rightwing Revisionist breed of Zionism, precursor to the now-ruling Likud party. This essay explores the role played by the 1905 Revolution in the creation of a Jewish Homeland in Palestine. The energetic…
Repeating the Past with Genius: Understanding the role played by Americanism & the Catholic Church in the creation of The Great Gatsby
“I wouldn’t ask too much of her,” I ventured. “You can’t repeat the past.” “You can’t repeat the past?” he cried incredulously.“Why of course you can!” He looked around him wildly, as if the past were lurking here in the shadow of his house, just out of reach of his hand. The Great Gatbsy With…
I am the Resurrection. The Death of Max Gerlach and the Birth of an American Hero
How Max Gerlach became associated with Arnold Rothstein isn’t clear. There is an eight-year period in Max’s life, starting 1912, when his exact location and activities are the subject of much speculation. This becomes clear in the report put together by Agent Harry W. Grunewald in the summer of 1917. After serving with the Atlantic…
A New Race of Man — How Trotsky’s Dream of a Soviet Superman Helped Perfect the American Dream
When F. Scott Fitzgerald sat down to work on his third novel, The Great Gatsby there was probably no greater influence on its composition than the author’s rediscovery of Percy Bysshe Shelley, a poet once memorably described by Harold Bloom as the Leon Trotsky of his day. D. Appleton and Company had just that year…
Sir Bernard Pares Russophile, Adventurer … Secret Agent
The role played by scholar, academic and adventurer Bernard Pares in Britain’s relationship with Imperial Russia and the signing of the Anglo-Russian Convention continues to be overlooked in popular history. This article explores the complex relationship between Pares’ groundwork for the Russo-British Chamber of Commerce in 1907, the British Russia Bureau during the First World…
Vegetable Eugenics — Genius Lost and Genius Regained.
If F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby exposed the tragic reality of Eugenics and the cruel, pyrrhic triumph of the American Dream, then it was only because previous attempts to drive a nail through its genetically superior heart with comedy had failed to prevent its moronic spread. The cheeky, irreverent view the author had taken…
Victor Grayson & the Etaples Mutiny
On September 9th 1917 former Colne Valley Socialist MP and would-be revolutionary Victor Grayson (Charles Strange in the TV Series) arrived in Etaples Base Camp. A few hours later a mutiny was in full swing.