After Fitzgerald's death in 1940, Edmund Wilson compiled and edited them into an anthology that was subsequently published by New Directions in 1945.

The book also includes other essays by Fitzgerald and positive evaluations of his work by Glenway Wescott, John Dos Passos, and John Peale Bishop, plus letters from Gertrude Stein, T. S. Eliot, and Edith Wharton in 1925 praising Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby.

Upon initial publication, the essays were poorly received and many reviewers were openly critical, particularly of Fitzgerald's personal revelations and his admission of his pessimistic outlook.

Critics have since referred to the collection as "a compelling psychological portrait and an illustration of an important Fitzgerald[ian] theme".

[1] French philosopher Gilles Deleuze adopted and further conceptualized the term crack from "The Crack-Up" in The Logic of Sense.