The Offshore Pirate

"You see, this is the beauty I want. Beauty has got to be astonishing, astounding-it's got to burst in on you like a dream, like the exquisite eyes of a girl."

Carlyle, The Offshore Pirate by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1920).

The Offshore Pirate (1920) by F. Scott Fitzgerald, first published in the Saturday Evening Post and later in his short story collection, Flappers and Philosophers (also available from Cosimo Classics), features spoiled rich girl, Ardita Farnam, and her uncle. The two are luxuriating on a yacht to Florida when it is captured by "pirates." Ironically, Ardita and the captain engage in a whirlwind romance with a twist at its end. The original ending (that it was Ardita's dream) was revised by Fitzgerald with the new ending touted by the author as one of the best he had ever written. This story is for fans of the femme fatale character and of Fitzgerald's well-crafted fiction.