"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" is anthologized in his book Tales of the Jazz Age. In 1860 Baltimore, Benjamin is born with the physical appearance of a 70-year-old man, already capable of speech. His father Roger invites neighborhood boys to play with him and orders him to play with children's toys, but Benjamin obeys only to please his father. At five, Benjamin is sent to kindergarten but is quickly withdrawn after he repeatedly falls asleep during child activities. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was released as a motion picture late in 2008 starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett and directed by David Fincher. The screenplay differs greatly from the short story. Only the title, Benjamin's name, and most aspects of the aging process are retained in the screenplay. Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (1896-1940) was an American author of novels and short stories, whose works are the paradigmatic writings of the Jazz Age. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. Fitzgerald is considered a member of the "Lost Generation" of the 1920s.

The inspiration for the major motion picture starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, plus eighteen other stories by the beloved author of The Great Gatsby In the title story of this collection by one of America’s greatest writers, a baby born in 1860 begins life as an old man and proceeds to age backward. F. Scott Fizgerald hinted at this kind of inversion when he called his era “a generation grown up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken.” Perhaps nowhere in American fiction has this “Lost Generation” been more vividly preserved than in Fitzgerald’s short fiction. Spanning the early twentieth-century American landscape, this original collection captures, with Fitzgerald’s signature blend of enchantment and disillusionment, America during the Jazz Age. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Evoking the Jazz-Age world that would later appear in his masterpiece, The Great Gatsby, this essential Fitzgerald collection contains some of the writer’s most famous and celebrated stories. In “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” an extraordinary child is born an old man, growing younger as the world ages around him. “The Diamond as Big as the Ritz,” a fable of excess and greed, shows two boarding school classmates mired in deception as they make their fortune in gemstones. And in the classic novella “May Day,” debutantes dance the night away as war veterans and socialists clash in the streets of New York. Opening the book is a playful and irreverent set of notes from the author, documenting the real-life pressures and experiences that shaped these stories, from his years at Princeton to his cravings for luxury to the May Day Riots of 1919. Taken as a whole, this collection brings to vivid life the dazzling excesses, stunning contrasts, and simmering unrest of a glittering era. Its 1922 publication furthered Fitzgerald's reputation as a master storyteller, and its legacy staked his place as the spokesman of an age.

Together, these forty-three stories compose a vivid picture of a lost era, but their brilliance is timeless.

The short story is one of the finest forms of writing. As short as a paragraph at times, or as lengthy as a novel, short stories are widely read and immensely lauded. Some of the most exceptional writers have dabbled in this form penning beautiful, unforgettable stories. In this carefully-crafted selection, we bring to you some of the greatest writers from around the world-- the iconic storytellers from America, such as Mark Twain, Kate Chopin, Virginia Woolf, the legendary Grimm brothers from Germany, to the lyrical Rabindranath Tagore from India, and the witty H H Munro from Britain. All these and many more remarkable people come together in this edition . . . and all have stories to tell. An anthology beginning with Aesop's fables-- perhaps the first stories we come across-- and ending with Virginia Woolf's gothic, thrilling ' The Haunted House', 100 World's Greatest Short Stories brings together stories short and sweet, descriptive and lengthy, and stories that can do anything-- from telling a tale to hiding its narrator, from portraying the reality to diving into pure imagination-- and are a must-read for every fiction lover."

Although better known today for his novels, in the 1920s F. Scott Fitzgerald ranked among the top writers of magazine fiction. Fitzgerald represented the dreams and aspirations of the post-World War I generation in his life as well as his works. With his glamorous wife, Zelda, and his cosmopolitan social circle, he projected the perfect image for narrating tales of restless youth in a hectic world. These short stories offer insights into many themes, characters, and techniques that emerged in Fitzgerald's later works. The title tale, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," reflects his preoccupation with life's fleeting nature. "Winter Dreams," written three years before The Great Gatsby, shares the concept of commitment to an idealized dream. "Babes in the Woods," developed during the author's Princeton days, evidences the roots of This Side of Paradise. Thirteen other selections offer further insights into the author's growing skills as well as examples of his sparkling prose, understated wit, and deft characterizations.

"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" is a short story written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. First published in Collier's Magazine on May 27, 1922. It was subsequently anthologized in his book Tales of the Jazz Age, which is occasionally published as The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Other Jazz Age Stories. It also was later adapted into the 2008 namesake film and in 2019 into a stage musical.