The Offshore Pirate

"The Offshore Pirate" is a short story written by F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1920. It is one of eight short stories included in Fitzgerald's first published collection, Flappers and Philosophers.

The story is about a spoiled young woman named Ardita Farnam, who is on a trip to Florida with her uncle. Their boat is eventually captured by "pirates," and she falls in love with their captain.

The story was first published in the May 29, 1920 issue of The Saturday Evening Post, his work's third appearance in the magazine that month. It 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 was adapted to film as The Off-Shore Pirate in 1921, which starred Viola Dana as Ardita.^[1] In 2010 an operatic version by Joel Weiss premiered at Christopher Street Opera in New York City.^[2]

The story had originally ended with the weak explanation that it was all Ardita's dream. Fitzgerald rewrote the conclusion to emphasize the reality of the story: "The last line takes Lorimer [the editor of the Post] at his word. It is one of the best lines I've ever written."

References

Works by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Novels

This Side of Paradise (1920)
The Beautiful and Damned (1922)
The Great Gatsby (1925)
Tender Is the Night (1934)
The Love of the Last Tycoon unfinished (1941)

Short story
collections

Flappers and Philosophers (1920)	"The Offshore Pirate" "The Ice Palace" "Head and Shoulders" "The Cut-Glass Bowl" "Bernice Bobs Her Hair" "Benediction" "Dalyrimple Goes Wrong" "The Four Fists"

Tales of the Jazz Age (1922)	"The Jelly-Bean" "The Camel's Back" "May Day" "Porcelain and Pink" The Diamond as Big as the Ritz "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" "Tarquin of Cheapside" "Oh Russet Witch!" "The Lees of Happiness" "Mr. Icky" "Jemina"

All the Sad Young Men (1926)	"The Rich Boy" "Winter Dreams" "The Baby Party" "Absolution" "Rags Martin-Jones and the Pr-nce of W-les" "The Adjuster" "Hot and Cold Blood" "The Sensible Thing" "Gretchen's Forty Winks"

Taps at Reveille (1935)	"The Scandal Detectives" "The Freshest Boy" "He Thinks He's Wonderful" "The Captured Shadow" "The Perfect Life" "First Blood" "A Nice Quiet Place" "A Woman with a Past" "Crazy Sunday" "Two Wrongs" "The Night of Chancellorsville" "The Last of the Belles" "Majesty" "Family in the Wind" "A Short Trip Home" "One Interne" "The Fiend" "Babylon Revisited"

Posthumous works	Babylon Revisited and Other Stories (1960) The Basil and Josephine Stories (1962) The Pat Hobby Stories (1973) The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald (1989)

Plays

The Vegetable, or From President to Postman (1923)

Books

The Crack-Up (1945)

Bibliography of F. Scott Fitzgerald

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The Offshore Pirate