Fitzgerald was an American writer, whose works illustrate the Jazz Age. Flappers and Philosophers was his first collection of short stories. The familiar themes of aspiration and social satire permeate his writing. Thus in "Bernice Bobs Her Hair" the fashionable Marjorie attempts to turn her dowdy cousin into a debutante, before betraying her out of jealousy, while "The Ice Palace" features a Southern girl whose marriage to a Northerner finds her confronted with a cultural clash between tradition and modernity. The volume also contains "The Offshore Pirate", "Head and Shoulders", "The Cut-Glass Bowl", "Benediction", "Dalyrimple Goes Wrong" and "The Four Fists".