8vo. Half-title. Original green cloth, gilt-lettered on spine (spine darkened, fore-edge of boards bumped); publisher’s dust jacket (lined on verso with japan tissue, restored with portions recolored and some work in facsimile). Provenance: “B.” (gift inscription from Al).

FIRST EDITION. The Vegetable, Fitzgerald's only professional play, debuted at the Apollo Theater in Atlantic City, New Jersey on November 19, 1923. Although he anticipated it would be a great financial success, it flopped. "The failure of The Vegetable, Fitzgerald's first professional setback, made him realize that he could no longer count on the success of every book, or continue to drink and spend without suffering the consequences...When it failed, he was forced to go on the wagon and write himself out of debt" (Myers, pp. 107-108). Bruccoli A10.1.a.