Bernice Bobs Her Hair:
An Introduction
Click on any image above to see the full size art work.
"Bernice Bobs Her Hair" was Fitzgerald's fourth Saturday Evening Post
story (1 May 1920) and provided the subject for the dust-jacket illustration
when it was collected in Flappers and Philosophers. It occupies an
important position in the Fitzgerald canon as a witty early treatment of a
characteristic subject that he would later examine more seriously: the
competition for social success and the determination with which his
characters-- especially the young women--engage in it. The story was based on
a detailed memo Fitzgerald wrote to his younger sister, Annabel, advising her
how to achieve popularity with boys: "Cultivate deliberate physical grace."
(See the complete letter in Correspondence of F. Scott Fitzgerald, pp
15-18.) Fitzgerald had some difficulty bringing "Bernice" to salable form; he
cut some three thousand words and rewrote to "inject a snappy climax. "
The text of Bernice Bobs Her Hair.
This page updated 22 July 1996.
Copyright 1996, the Board of Trustees of the University of South Carolina.
URL http://www.sc.edu/fitzgerald/bernice/index.html
