11/09/2026
F. Scott Fitzgerald, whose full name was Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald, was a prominent American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. He is most famously associated with his vivid portrayal of the glamour, excess, and moral complexities of the Jazz Age—a term he himself popularized through his collection Tales of the Jazz Age. Over the course of his career, he produced four novels, four collections of short stories, and more than 160 individual stories. Although he enjoyed considerable popularity and financial success during the 1920s, his work did not receive lasting critical recognition until after his death. Today, he is regarded as one of the most significant figures in twentieth-century American literature.
Fitzgerald was born into a middle-class family in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and spent much of his upbringing in New York. He later attended Princeton University, where he formed a close friendship with the future literary critic Edmund Wilson. However, following a disappointing romantic relationship with Ginevra King, a wealthy socialite from Chicago, he left Princeton in 1917 to enlist in the United States Army during the First World War. While stationed in Alabama, he met Zelda Sayre, a young woman from a distinguished Southern family. Initially, Zelda declined his proposal due to his uncertain financial future, but she eventually agreed to marry him after the success of his debut novel This Side of Paradise in 1920. The book achieved immediate popularity and established Fitzgerald as a leading literary voice of his time.
His second novel, The Beautiful and Damned (1922), further strengthened his position within the cultural elite. To support his expensive lifestyle, he contributed numerous short stories to well-known magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post, Collier’s Weekly, and Esquire. During this period, Fitzgerald spent time in Europe, where he became associated with members of the “Lost Generation,” including writers like Ernest Hemingway. His third novel, The Great Gatsby (1925), was well received by critics but failed to achieve commercial success initially, selling fewer than 23,000 copies in its first year. Nevertheless, it is now widely considered one of the greatest works in American literature.
As his wife Zelda’s mental health deteriorated and she was diagnosed with schizophrenia and institutionalized, Fitzgerald went on to complete his fourth novel, Tender Is the Night (1934). However, the economic hardships of the Great Depression, along with declining popularity, left him in financial difficulty. He eventually moved to Hollywood in an attempt to work as a screenwriter, though this venture did not bring him much success. During this time, he lived with journalist Sheilah Graham, who remained his companion until his death. After years of struggling with alcoholism, he managed to achieve sobriety shortly before he died of a heart attack in 1940 at the age of 44.
Following his death, his close friend Edmund Wilson edited and published his unfinished novel The Last Tycoon in 1941. A revised edition, titled The Love of the Last Tycoon, was later released in 1993 under the editorship of Matthew J. Bruccoli.
English Literature
Deepika Verma
