F. Scott Fitzgerald Short Story Finally Published

F. Scott Fitzgerald‘s Thank You For the Light is a story that was rejected by The New Yorker in 1936, but has finally been redeemed as the magazine agreed to publish it this week.

The Huffington Post reports that Fitzgerald’s latest story is mildly fantastical, and talks about smoking and prayer. When it was rejected, the magazine wrote in an internal message that the story was, “altogether out of the question. It seems to us so curious and so unlike the kind of thing we associate with him and really too fantastic.”

Fitzgerald was not very well-known during his lifetime, but his works, like novel The Great Gatsby, have seen a lot of popularity since his passing. Ashley Bahnken, PR assistant at The New Yorker, wrote that”

“[The story was] retrieved from ‘the vault'” by Fitzgerald’s grandchildren who were preparing some of his papers for a sale at Sotheby’s (the story wasn’t included in the sale). The Fitzgerald scholar and editor James West read it and sent it on to the agent for the estate, thinking that it might be fun for The New Yorker to have a second shot at the piece.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Thank You For the Light is a short story featuring Mrs. Hanson, “a pretty, somewhat faded woman of forty, who sold corsets and girdles.” The Los Angeles Times reports that, when Mrs. Hanson moves to a new territory, her smoking habit is frowned upon. The story focuses on Mrs. Hanson’s longing while she wishes for the cigarette she is not able to smoke.

Click here to read F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Thank You For the Light.