Literary Modernism in the Age of Celebrity

Using the careers of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Gertrude Stein as examples, this article examines the creation of literary celebrity in the early twentieth century as a complex recursive process that involves authorial actions, the production of specific works, the promotion of texts and their authors, and audience reception. It ultimately contends that a more thorough exploration of this process can help scholars gain a better understanding of both the vocational sphere of authorship at the turn of the twentieth century and the texts produced at that time.