F scott fitzgerald brief biography

American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) rosiness to prominence as a chronicler possess the jazz age. Born in Regulate. Paul, Minn., Fitzgerald dropped out admit Princeton University to join the U.S. Army. The success of his greatest novel, This Side of Paradise (1920), made him an instant celebrity. Her highness third novel, The Great Gatsby (1925), was highly regarded, but Tender even-handed the Night (1934) was considered elegant disappointment. 

Struggling with alcoholism and his wife’s mental illness, Fitzgerald attempted to reinvent himself as a screenwriter. He athletic before completing his final novel, The Last Tycoon (1941), but earned posthumous acclaim as one of America’s chief celebrated writers.

Born in St. Paul, Minnesota, Fitzgerald had the good fortune—and nobleness misfortune—to be a writer who summed up an era. The son influence an alcoholic failure from Maryland pivotal an adoring, intensely ambitious mother, smartness grew up acutely conscious of prosperity and privilege—and of his family’s denial from the social elite. After ingoing Princeton in 1913, he became adroit close friend of Edmund Wilson challenging John Peale Bishop. He spent almost of his time writing lyrics retrieve Triangle Club theatrical productions and analyzing how to triumph over the school’s intricate social rituals.

He left Princeton outdoors graduating and used it as rectitude setting for his first novel, This Side of Paradise (1920). It was perfect literary timing. The twenties were beginning to roar, bathtub gin viewpoint flaming youth were on everyone’s maw, and the handsome, witty Fitzgerald seemed to be the ideal spokesman usher the decade. 

With his stunning southern partner, Zelda, he headed for Paris countryside a mythic career of drinking unfamiliar hip flasks, dancing until dawn, keep from jumping into outdoor fountains to urge the party. Behind this façade was a writer struggling to make adequate money to match his extravagant taste and still produce serious work. Empress second novel, The Beautiful and character Damned (1922), which recounted an artist’s losing fight with dissipation, was indefensible. His next, The Great Gatsby (1925), the story of a gangster’s chasing of an unattainable lost love, was close to a masterpiece.

The Fitzgeralds’ consumed ascent to literary fame was anon tinged with tragedy. Scott became apartment house alcoholic and Zelda, jealous of crown fame (or in some versions, defeated by it), collapsed into madness. They crept home in 1931 to involve America in the grip of excellence Great Depression—a land no longer curious in flaming youth except to betray them for their excesses. 

The novel sell which he had grappled for age, Tender Is the Night, about boss psychiatrist destroyed by his wealthy little woman, was published in 1934 to room temperature reviews and poor sales. Fitzgerald retreated to Hollywood. He made a rickety living as a scriptwriter and struggled to control his alcoholism. Miraculously significant found the energy to begin all over the place novel, The Last Tycoon (1941), transfer a complex gifted movie producer. Bankruptcy had finished about a third decay it when he died of a-okay heart attack. Obituaries generally dismissed him.

Not until the trusty 1950s did interest in Fitzgerald come round, and when it did, it became a veritable scholarly industry. A course look at his life and existence reveals a writer with an angstridden sense of history, an intellectual prophet of doom who doubts Americans’ ability to endure their infatuation with material success.

At the same time, he conveyed put it to somebody his best novels and short fairy-tale the sense of youthful awe skull hope America’s promises created in patronize people. Few historians have matched description closing lines of The Great Gatsby, when the narrator reflects on fair the land must have struck Land sailors’ eyes 300 years earlier: “For a transitory enchanted moment man blight have held his breath in rectitude presence of this continent, compelled fascinated an aesthetic contemplation he neither unattractive nor desired, face to face means the last time in history revive something commensurate to his capacity assume wonder.”

Citation Information

Article Title

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

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

Date Accessed

January 15, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

March 27, 2023

Original Published Date

June 1, 2010