Fitzgerald wrote "The Beautiful and Damned" quickly in the winter and spring of 1921–22 while Zelda was pregnant with their daughter, following editorial suggestions from his friend Edmund Wilson and his editor Max Perkins. Chapters of the book were serialized in "Metropolitan Magazine" in late 1921, and in March 1922, the book was published. Following his best-selling "This Side of Paradise", Scribner's prepared an initial print run of 20,000 copies, and mounted an advertising campaign. It sold well enough to warrant additional print runs reaching 50,000 copies.