2018 Reprint of 1922 Edition. In this short story first published in 1922, a baby born in 1860 begins life as 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. This short story fully expresses with Fitzgerald's signature blend of enchantment and disillusionment which was America during the Jazz Age.