F. Scott Fitzgerald

Biography

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (1896-1940) was living the Jazz Age lifestyle he was critiquing. Born middle-class in St. Paul, Minnesota, he attended Princeton among the wealthy, dropped out to join the Army, and fell in love with Zelda Sayre — a Southern belle who initially rejected him because he wasn't rich enough. After his first novel made him famous, they married and became the golden couple of the 1920s — legendary parties, legendary spending, legendary unhappiness. He wrote Gatsby in France, looking back at America with the clarity of distance. The novel sold poorly. He died broke in Hollywood at 44, believing himself a failure.

F. Scott Fitzgerald at a glance