This Side of Paradise
Complete textAmory Blaine grows up with a strong sense of his own distinction and carries it into school, college, and romantic attachments. Education and social encounters give him languages for ambition that do not always survive experience. His developing self-image becomes a continuing negotiation with disappointment, attraction, and changing expectations.
Continue readingAbout This Side of Paradise
The narrative’s shifts into poems and dramatic exchanges make Amory’s search for a self partly a search for forms of expression. Intellectual poses and romantic declarations can be sincere while still borrowed. Compare what he thinks an experience means at the time with how quickly a new encounter revises the explanation, especially when confidence depends on an appreciative audience.
Reading focus
Follow Amory’s changing styles of self-description as school, romance, and disappointment unsettle his confidence in being an exceptional young man.
This reading edition contains 81,413 words in 11 original sections. Read the text online with adjustable type and three colour themes, or keep a printable PDF.
Author: F Scott Fitzgerald. Language: English. Reading edition: 28 October 2026.
Opening excerpt
... Well this side of Paradise!... There’s little comfort in the wise. —Rupert Brooke.
Contents
All sections- Epigraphs and dedication1 min
- BOOK ONE—The Romantic Egotist — CHAPTER 1. Amory, Son of Beatrice47 min
- BOOK ONE—The Romantic Egotist — CHAPTER 2. Spires and Gargoyles75 min
- BOOK ONE—The Romantic Egotist — CHAPTER 3. The Egotist Considers41 min
- BOOK ONE—The Romantic Egotist — CHAPTER 4. Narcissus Off Duty48 min
- BOOK ONE—The Romantic Egotist — INTERLUDE10 min
- BOOK TWO—The Education of a Personage — CHAPTER 1. The Debutante37 min
- BOOK TWO—The Education of a Personage — CHAPTER 2. Experiments in Convalescence31 min
- BOOK TWO—The Education of a Personage — CHAPTER 3. Young Irony29 min
- BOOK TWO—The Education of a Personage — CHAPTER 4. The Supercilious Sacrifice15 min
- BOOK TWO—The Education of a Personage — CHAPTER 5. The Egotist Becomes a Personage42 min
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Is this the complete This Side of Paradise?
This edition contains the complete English literary text, with 11 sections and 81,413 words. This reading edition preserves the checked English text and its section order. No study notes have been added.
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