Who edited Fitzgerald's unfinished The Last Tycoon for its 1941 publication?

Edmund Wilson edited Fitzgerald’s unfinished The Last Tycoon for its posthumous 1941 publication.

Fitzgerald died in December 1940, leaving the Hollywood novel incomplete and in rough form. Wilson, a literary critic and close friend, worked with Fitzgerald’s papers and notes to prepare the manuscript for Scribner’s. The book appeared on November 4, 1941, under the title The Last Tycoon.

The novel follows Monroe Stahr, a powerful film producer modeled partly on Irving Thalberg, and was intended to explore Hollywood ambition, romance, and creative control. Because Fitzgerald had planned additional chapters, Wilson’s editorial role involved organizing incomplete material rather than finishing a conventional completed novel.

A common mix-up concerns later editions. Matthew J. Bruccoli edited the 1993 Cambridge version, published as The Love of the Last Tycoon, while Maxwell Perkins was Fitzgerald’s Scribner’s editor—not the person who prepared the 1941 posthumous text.