Fitzgerald, F. Scott: 1896 - 1940
Information about F. Scott Fitzgerald
- General Information
- Facts
- Brief Biography
- Brief biography read by Susan M. Johnson. Can be used as listening comprehension exercise.
- TranscriptFrancis Scott Fitzgerald was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, on September 24, 1896. At the age of 18 he fell in love with the 16-year-old Ginevra King, the prototype of Daisy Buchanan of "The Great Gatsby."
During 1911-1913 he attended the Newman School, a Catholic prep school in New Jersey. Fitzgerald joined the army in 1917 and was commissioned as second lieutenant in the infantry. In June 1918 Fitzgerald was assigned to Camp Sheridan, near Montgomery, Alabama. There he fell in love with a celebrated belle, eighteen-year-old Zelda Sayre.
The war ended just before he was to be sent overseas; after his discharge in 1919 he went to New York City to seek his fortune in order to marry.
In 1920 he married Zelda Sayre in New York. They embarked on an extravagant life as young celebrities. Seeking tranquility for his work the Fitzgeralds went to France in the spring of 1924 . He wrote The Great Gatsby during the summer and fall in Valescure near St. Raphael. But sales of the book were disappointing, though the stage and movie rights brought additional income.
During the next five years the Fitzgeralds travelled between Europe and America several times. To support his expensive life style with Zelda, Fitzgerald frequently interrupted his work on his novels to write short stories. Fitzgerald's alcoholism and Zelda's mental breakdown attracted wide publicity in the 1930s.
He died of a heart attack on December 21, 1940.
F. Scott Fitzgerald died believing himself a failure, yet "The Great Gatsby" defines the classic American novel.
- Transcript
- Bibliography
- 10 surprising facts
- Articles about his Life
- Zelda met F. Scott Fitzgerald at one of the military dances, and he stood out from the crowd in his fancy Brooks Brothers uniform and cream-colored boots. Zelda said, He smelled like new goods. He told her that she looked like the heroine in the novel he was writing. They went on their first date on Zelda's birthday, July 24, 1918. She never forgot that day. They got engaged, but Zelda's parents didn't approve of Scott, because he didn't have any money. He moved to New York and tried desperately to publish his first novel so that he could make something of himself and marry her. The novel was rejected twice, so Scott quit his job in New York and moved home with his parents in St. Paul, Minnesota to rewrite it one more time. While he worked, Zelda wrote him letters about the men she had been dating and about how maybe they should break off the engagement. He quoted lines from her letters in his novel, which was about a man who loses a girl because he doesn't have enough money. He retitled it This Side of Paradise, and in September of 1919, he received word that it would be published...
By the time the stock market crashed in 1929, Fitzgerald had started to crash too. His marriage was coming apart--Zelda had her first nervous breakdown in 1930. The changes that came with the Great Depression made F. Scott Fitzgerald seem like ancient history, along with everything else from the "Roaring Twenties." He had written about the lives of the rich, and now he remained associated with them and had fallen out of favor. His books, including The Great Gatsby (1925), did not sell well. In 1929, the Saturday Evening Post paid him $4,000 per story, but his total royalties on seven books that year were only $31.77. In 1932, as the Great Depression was approaching its worst point, Fitzgerald was living in New York, a city that he loved. He said, "New York had all the iridescence of the beginning of the world."
from The Writer's Almanac - F. Scott Fitzgerald and his first love, Ginevra King
- A Personal Reflection by Garrison Keillor
- Fitzgerald and Switzerland
- F. Scott Fitzgerald’s life was a study in destructive alcoholism: "Throughout his life, Scott made a drunken fool out of himself at parties and public venues". PBS News Hour; April 11, 2017
- Picture with his wife Zelda and their daughter Scottie
- F. Scott Fitzgerald documentary
- The Scandalous Life and Love of Zelda Sayre and F. Scott Fitzgerald; 2024
- Novelist Jay McInerney explores the life and writing of F Scott Fitzgerald. BBC
- A Troubled Life Cut Short - the brilliant but all too short life of F Scott Fitzgerald
- Fitzgerald at 120: A Panel on F. Scott Fitzgerald's Life and Legacy. Cecilia Ross, F. Scott Fitzgerald's granddaughter, introduces the panel among them Maureen Corrigan, NPR book critic, Jackson Bryer, University of Maryland Professor Emeritus, and John Collins, director of the New York ensemble theater group Elevator Repair Service. Recorded September 22, 2016
- Zelda met F. Scott Fitzgerald at one of the military dances, and he stood out from the crowd in his fancy Brooks Brothers uniform and cream-colored boots. Zelda said, He smelled like new goods. He told her that she looked like the heroine in the novel he was writing. They went on their first date on Zelda's birthday, July 24, 1918. She never forgot that day. They got engaged, but Zelda's parents didn't approve of Scott, because he didn't have any money. He moved to New York and tried desperately to publish his first novel so that he could make something of himself and marry her. The novel was rejected twice, so Scott quit his job in New York and moved home with his parents in St. Paul, Minnesota to rewrite it one more time. While he worked, Zelda wrote him letters about the men she had been dating and about how maybe they should break off the engagement. He quoted lines from her letters in his novel, which was about a man who loses a girl because he doesn't have enough money. He retitled it This Side of Paradise, and in September of 1919, he received word that it would be published...
- Articles about his Novels
- Fitzgerald's 'Radiant World' by Thomas Flanagan. New York Review of Books; December 21, 2000
- About Trimalchio, an early version of Gatsby.
- How other authors view Fitzgerald
- F. Scott Fitzgerald: American Novelist and Short Story Writer by Bryant Mangum, Virginia Commenwealth University
- Fitzgerald as Novelist by Bryant Mangum, Virginia Commenwealth University, 1998
- Introduction to the Novels of F. Scott Fitzgerald by Bryant Mangum, Virginia Commonwealth University, 1981
- Miscellania
- Sharon Pollock wrote the play Angel's Trumpet, 2001. A play about the lives of Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.
- Appraisal of a ca. 1935 oil painting by Zelda Fitzgerald. PBS; August 2, 2021
- Teaching
- Fitzgerald Crossword Puzzle. How much do you know about Fitzgerald's works and life?
