The Offshore Pirate:
An Introduction

The Offshore Pirate artwork The Offshore Pirate artwork
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"The Offshore Pirate" (29 May 1920) was Fitzgerald's third Saturday Evening Post appearance during the month and demonstrates his rapid development as a versatile fiction writer. It is the first story that develops Fitzgerald's recurrent plot idea of a heroine won by her lover's performance of an extraordinary deed.

The story had originally ended with the weak explanation that it was all Ardita's dream. Fitzgerald rewrote the conclusion to emphasize the storyness of the story: "The last line takes Lorimer [the editor of the Post] at his word. Its one of the best lines I've ever written." "The Offshore Pirate" was collected in Flappers and Philosophers.

The text of The Offshore Pirate.

Fitzgerald Centenary Comments

This page updated 22 July 1996.
Copyright 1996, the Board of Trustees of the University of South Carolina.
URL http://www.sc.edu/fitzgerald/pirate/index.html