F. Scott Fitzgerald

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896–December 21,1940) was an Irish-American Jazz Age novelist and short story writer.

The Roaring Twenties

The 1920s proved the most influential decade of Fitzgerald's development. His second novel, The Beautiful and Damned, published in 1922, represents an impressive development over the comparatively immature This Side of Paradise. The Great Gatsby, which many consider his masterpiece, was published in 1925. Fitzgerald made several famous excursions to Europe, notably Paris and the French Riviera, and became friends with many members of the American expatriate community in Paris, notably Ernest Hemingway.

Related Topics:
1920s - The Beautiful and Damned - 1922 - The Great Gatsby - 1925 - Paris - French Riviera - Ernest Hemingway

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Fitzgerald drew largely upon his wife?s intense personality in his writings, at times quoting direct segments of her personal diaries in his work. Zelda made mention of this in a 1922 mock review in the New York Tribune, saying that ?t seems to me that on one page I recognized a portion of an old diary of mine which mysteriously disappeared shortly after my marriage, and also scraps of letters which, though considerably edited, sound to me vaguely familiar. In fact, Mr. Fitzgerald—I believe that is how he spells his name—seems to believe that plagiarism begins at home" (Zelda Fitzgerald: The Collected Writings, 338).

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Although Fitzgerald's passion lay in writing novels, they never sold well enough to support the opulent lifestyle that he and Zelda adopted as New York celebrities. To support this lifestyle, he turned to writing short stories for such magazines as the Saturday Evening Post, Collier's Magazine, and Esquire magazine, and sold movie rights of his stories and novels to Hollywood studios. He was constantly in financial trouble and often required loans from his literary agent, Harold Ober, and his editor at Scribner's, Maxwell Perkins.

Related Topics:
Saturday Evening Post - Collier's Magazine - Esquire magazine - Harold Ober - Scribner's - Maxwell Perkins

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Fitzgerald began working on his fourth novel during the late 1920s but was sidetracked by financial difficulties that necessitated his writing commercial short stories, and the schizophrenia that struck Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald in 1930. Her emotional health remained fragile for the rest of her life. In 1932, she was hospitalized in Baltimore, Maryland, and Scott rented the "La Paix" estate in the suburb of Towson to work on his book, which had become the story of the rise and fall of Dick Diver, a promising young psychoanalyst and his wife, Nicole, who is also one of his patients. It was published in 1934 as Tender is the Night. http://www.pinkmonkey.com/booknotes/monkeynotes/pmTender01.asp Critics regard it as one of Fitzgerald's finest works.

Related Topics:
1920s - Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald - 1930 - 1932 - 1934 - Tender is the Night

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