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More About F. Scott Fitzgerald...
F. Scott Fitzgerald
1896-1940
American
Introduction
Major Works
Chronology
Introduction
Poet of the Jazz Age and chronicler of the American Dream, F. Scott Fitzgerald is best known for capturing the decadence of 1920s America in The Great Gatsby. In collections of short stories such as Flappers and Philosophers and Tales of the Jazz Age, and in novels such as The Great Gatsby and The Beautiful and Damned, Fitzgerald offers a critique of American materialism and manners, even though he himself could easily be accused of living by the very values he was indicting. Fitzgerald was propelled into instant fame when his first novel, This Side of Paradise, based on his experiences during his undergraduate years at Princeton University, was published. His literary success helped him to woo the beautiful Zelda Sayre; their tumultuous and flamboyant romance and lifestyle became as well known as the writer's work.
As an American modernist and member of the so-called lost generation, Fitzgerald is associated with a circle of expatriate writers, including Ernest Hemingway, who often wrote from the other side of the Atlantic, using their unique perspective to expose the foibles and disillusionment of American life. Traveling back and forth between Europe and the United States, the Fitzgeralds spent much of their time on the French Riviera, the setting for Tender Is the Night, where their lives became a whirlwind of extravagant parties and alcohol consumption. Like Nicole Diver in Tender Is the Night, Zelda suffered from a mental illness that eventually led to her institutionalization and to Fitzgerald's own downfall. Struggling to make ends meet after he and Zelda frivolously spent the profits he earned from his work, 44-year-old F. Scott Fitzgerald died of a heart attack in California, where he was working on screenplays as well as a novel, The Last Tycoon, about a Hollywood film mogul, which was published, unfinished, a year after his death.
Having experienced the height of his celebrity in the 1920s, Fitzgerald described himself, in a letter to his wife written not long before his death, as a "forgotten man." With the onset of the Great Depression, signaled by the Crash of 1929 , the vibrant era of flappers, jazz, and alcoholic irresponsibility that Fitzgerald depicted in his work had come to a close. However, in the years after his death, his work was rediscovered and republished, leading to a Fitzgerald revival and earning him a permanent place in American letters, especially as the author of The Great Gatsby, the quintessential story of the American Dream, whose climactic ending resonates with Fitzgerald's own tragic fate. As a testament to the endurance of Fitzgerald's work, recent years have seen the publication of the original manuscript of The Great Gatsby, Trimalchio (named for a working title of the novel, Trimalchio in West Egg), as well as the premiere of an opera by composer John Harbison based on the book
Major Works
This Side of Paradise (1920)
Flappers and Philosophers (1921)
Tales of the Jazz Age (1922)
The Beautiful and Damned (1922)
The Great Gatsby (1925)
Tender Is the Night (1934)
Chronology
1896
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald is born in St. Paul, Minnesota, on September 24.
1911-13
Attends Newman Academy in Hackensack, New Jersey.
1913
Enrolls in Princeton University, where he contributes to the Nassau Literary Magazine and the Princeton Tiger, the campus humor magazine. He also writes and performs for the university's musical theater group, the Princeton Triangle Club.
1915
Takes a leave of absence from Princeton due to ill health and poor grades.
1916
Returns to Princeton.
1917
Leaves Princeton before graduating to become a lieutenant in the United States Army.
1918
Meets 18-year-old Zelda Sayre at a country club dance in Montgomery, Alabama, near where he is stationed.
1919
After being discharged from the army, Fitzgerald takes a job with an advertising agency, Barron Collier, in New York. Zelda breaks their engagement. Quitting his job writing advertising copy, Fitzgerald returns to St. Paul to rewrite his novel, entitled The Romantic Egotist, an autobiographical fiction based on his undergraduate experience at Princeton.
1920
His first novel, This Side of Paradise (formerly The Romantic Egotist), is published, as well as his first collection of short stories, Flappers and Philosophers. Fitzgerald marries Zelda Sayre in New York.
1921
Fitzgerald's only child, a daughter, Frances Scott Fitzgerald, is born.
1922
Fitzgerald's second novel, The Beautiful and Damned, and his second short story collection, Tales of the Jazz Age, are published. The family moves to a house in Great Neck, Long Island, which becomes the setting for The Great Gatsby.
1923
Fitzgerald's only play, "The Vegetable," is published, but the production closes shortly after its opening in Atlantic City.
1924
The Fitzgeralds move to Europe, where they live primarily on the French Riviera.
1925
Publishes The Great Gatsby; he meets Ernest Hemingway, a fellow writer of the "lost generation."
1926
The Fitzgeralds return to the United States; Fitzgerald publishes another collection of short stories, All the Sad Young Men.
1927
Goes to Hollywood to write movie scripts. Later that year, the family moves to Ellerslie, a mansion located near Wilmington, Delaware.
1928
The Fitzgeralds spend a summer in Paris.
1929
The Fitzgeralds return to Europe, living in France and Switzerland.
1930
Zelda has her first major breakdown in Paris and goes to a clinic in Switzerland for treatment.
1931
The Fitzgeralds return permanently to the United States, to Montgomery, Alabama. Fitzgerald also works briefly again in Hollywood.
1932
Zelda suffers another breakdown; her novel Save Me the Waltz is published.
1934
Zelda suffers her third breakdown and is in and out of sanitariums for the rest of her life. Fitzgerald publishes Tender Is the Night.
1935
Fitzgerald's last collection of short stories, Taps at Reveille, is published. He writes a number of autobiographical essays, which are published in Esquire; these essays are later collected by Edmund Wilson in an edition called The Crack Up. Fitzgerald begins to suffer increasingly from alcoholism and other illnesses.
1937
Returns again to Hollywood for a script-writing contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. While there, he meets and falls in love with Sheilah Graham, who went on to publish several reminiscences of their time together.
1939
Begins to write his novel about Hollywood, The Last Tycoon.
1940
Dies of his second heart attack on December 21 while working in Hollywood.
1941
Though unfinished, The Last Tycoon is published by Edmund Wilson.
1948
Zelda perishes in a fire at Highland Sanitarium in Asheville, North Carolina.
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