The Curious Case of Benjamin Button by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald | Published: May 27, 1922

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Synopsis

"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" is a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald. It was published in Collier's on May 27, 1922. It is also published in the Tales of the Jazz Age short story collection the same year. James Montgomery Flagg created the covers and graphics for this short story's initial publication.

Baltimore's socialite, Roger Button, is expecting a child with his younger wife. Upon the birth of his child, Roger Button is directed to the "crying room." He is astounded when he learns that his newborn kid is a guy in his 70s. This newborn is Benjamin Button, and he grows younger as time passes. This short story is a surreal tale of time and (non) conformism that is a little melancholy and, in its craziness, somewhat amusing.

Excerpt from The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Online Book

As long ago as 1860 it was the proper thing to be born at home. At present, so I am told, the high gods of medicine have decreed that the first cries of the young shall be uttered upon the anaesthetic air of a hospital, preferably a fashionable one. So young Mr. and Mrs. Roger Button were fifty years ahead of style when they decided, one day in the summer of 1860, that their first baby should be born in a hospital. Whether this anachronism had any bearing upon the astonishing history I am about to set down will never be known.

About F. Scott Fitzgerald

F. Scott Fitzgerald was born in 1896 and was one of the most iconic American novelists and short story writers of the 20th century. He was best remembered for his novel, The Great Gatsby. F. Scott Fitzgerald is known for writing about the 'Jazz Age' of 1920s America from a perspective that combined romantic nostalgia with a critique of social attitudes at the time. Find out more about F. Scott Fitzgerald at sevenov.com.