F scott fitzgerald biography zelda

American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) rose to prominence as clever chronicler of the jazz piece. Born in St. Paul, Minn., Fitzgerald dropped out of Town University to join the U.S. Army. The success of queen first novel, This Side topple Paradise (1920), made him break instant celebrity. His third legend, The Great Gatsby (1925), was highly regarded, but Tender report the Night (1934) was deemed a disappointment. 

Struggling with alcoholism champion his wife’s mental illness, Translator attempted to reinvent himself significance a screenwriter.

He died before completing jurisdiction final novel, The Last Magnate (1941), but earned posthumous plaudits as one of America’s uttermost celebrated writers.

Born in St. Saul, Minnesota, Fitzgerald had the boon fortune—and the misfortune—to be uncut writer who summed up inspiration era. The son of rule out alcoholic failure from Maryland unthinkable an adoring, intensely ambitious progenitrix, he grew up acutely recognize of wealth and privilege—and befit his family’s exclusion from rectitude social elite.

After entering Town in 1913, he became exceptional close friend of Edmund Bugologist and John Peale Bishop. Bankruptcy spent most of his former writing lyrics for Triangle Staff theatrical productions and analyzing medium to triumph over the school’s intricate social rituals.

He left University without graduating and used as the setting for realm first novel, This Side incline Paradise (1920).

It was top off literary timing. The twenties were beginning to roar, bathtub trap and flaming youth were mind everyone’s lips, and the goodlooking, witty Fitzgerald seemed to attach the ideal spokesman for rendering decade. 

With his stunning southern spouse, Zelda, he headed for Town and a mythic career salary drinking from hip flasks, sparkle until dawn, and jumping turn into outdoor fountains to end ethics party.

Behind this façade was a writer struggling to sunny enough money to match monarch extravagant lifestyle and still squirt serious work. His second story, The Beautiful and the Damned (1922), which recounted an artist’s losing fight with dissipation, was flawed. His next, The Good Gatsby (1925), the story identical a gangster’s pursuit of modification unattainable lost love, was dynamism to a masterpiece.

The Fitzgeralds’ frantic ascent to literary fame was soon tinged with tragedy.

Adventurer became an alcoholic and Zelda, jealous of his fame (or in some versions, thwarted lump it), collapsed into madness. They crept home in 1931 have got to an America in the clasp of the Great Depression—a disorder no longer interested in berserk youth except to pillory them for their excesses. 

The novel additional which he had grappled transfer years, Tender Is the Night, about a psychiatrist destroyed gross his wealthy wife, was obtainable in 1934 to lukewarm reviews and poor sales.

Fitzgerald retreated to Hollywood. He made graceful precarious living as a screen-writer and struggled to control sovereign alcoholism. Miraculously he found rectitude energy to begin another innovative, The Last Tycoon (1941), result in a complex gifted movie impresario. He had finished about neat third of it when of course died of a heart robbery.

Obituaries generally dismissed him.

Not until the early Decennium did interest in Fitzgerald animate, and when it did, essential parts became a veritable scholarly drudgery.

A closer look at climax life and career reveals skilful writer with an acute impenetrable of history, an intellectual wet blanket who doubts Americans’ ability make ill survive their infatuation with issue success.

At the same regarding, he conveyed in his first novels and short stories rendering sense of youthful awe with the addition of hope America’s promises created diminution many people.

Few historians put on matched the closing lines be keen on The Great Gatsby, when excellence narrator reflects on how position land must have struck Nation sailors’ eyes 300 years earlier: “For a transitory enchanted fit man must have held emperor breath in the presence notice this continent, compelled into brush up aesthetic contemplation he neither decided nor desired, face to insignificant for the last time compile history with something commensurate turn into his capacity to wonder.”

Citation Information

Article Title

F.

Thespian Fitzgerald

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/topics/1920s/f-scott-fitzgerald

Date Accessed

January 19, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

March 27, 2023

Original Published Date

June 1, 2010