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Authors: F. Scott Fitzgerald

BOOK: This Side of Paradise (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)
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Scott and Zelda and their daughter, Scottie, lived a peripatetic life for many years, settling in Europe for periods and then residing in America. In Paris Fitzgerald met Ernest Hemingway and other American expatriate writers whom Gertrude Stein was to dub the “lost generation.”
In 1925 Fitzgerald published his masterpiece, The Great
Gatsby.
Written while the author was living in the French Riviera, the story of the parvenu Jay Gatsby was more a critical success than a financial one, and Fitzgerald continued to support his extravagant lifestyle through frequent, and well-paid, magazine contributions. But his literary fortunes changed following publication of
The Great Gatsby.
Although he published a collection of short stories in 1926, he did not produce another book until 1934, when
Tender Is the Night,
which he had labored on for years, was published. Meanwhile, his domestic life deteriorated as Zelda became increasingly unstable and Fitzgerald sank deeper into alcoholism. Zelda’s emotional collapse in 1930 was precipitated by maniacally intense ballet studies; the remaining years of her life were spent in and out of hospitals.
Tender Is the Night
was a commercial failure and received mixed reviews from the critics. Fitzgerald spent the years following its publication drunk and dissolute; he chronicled this period in the “Crack-Up” essays. His literary fame diminished, he worked as a Hollywood scriptwriter and wrote short stories; in 1939 he began work on his final novel,
The Last Tycoon,
about Hollywood life. By then he was living with Sheilah Graham, a Hollywood gossip columnist, with whom he would spend the rest of his life. Before
The Last Tycoon
was completed, F. Scott Fitzgerald died of a heart attack, on December 21,1940, at the age of forty-four.
The Last Tycoon
was published in 1941; its writing style is considered as fine as the best of Fitzgerald’s other work.
THE WORLD OF F. SCOTT FITZGERALD AND THIS SIDE OF PARADISE
1896
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald is born in St. Paul, Minnesota, on September 24, the only son of Edward, a genteel, unsuccessful factory owner, and Mary (“Mollie”) McQuillan, the daughter of an Irish immigrant who became a successful wholesale grocer in St. Paul. He is named after his father’s distant cousin, the author of the “Star-Spangled Banner.”
1898
Commercial failures force Edward to move his family to Buffalo, New York, where he takes a sales job with Proctor and Gamble.
1899
Sigmund Freud publishes
Die Traumdeutung (The Interpretation of Dreams);
the first edition carries the publication date 1900.
1901
Edward Fitzgerald is relocated with his family to Syracuse, New York.
1905
Einstein publishes significant physics papers, including one on the special theory of relativity.
1907
Artists Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque begin to develop cubism, an important new visual arts style.
1908
Edward Fitzgerald loses his job at Proctor and Gamble, and the family returns to St. Paul, where they are supported by Mollie’s inheritance. F. Scott Fitzgerald enters St. Paul’s Academy.
1909
Fitzgerald’s first published story, “The Mystery of the Raymond Mortgage,” appears in his school journal.
1911
Fitzgerald enters the Newman School, an elite Catholic prep school in Hackensack, New Jersey. During his three years at Newman, he publishes three stories in the school literary magazine and writes and produces several plays. He meets Father Sigourney Fay, who recognizes and encourages his talents.
1912
C. G. Jung publishes
Wandlungen und Symbole der Libido (The Psychology of the Unconscious).
1913
He graduates from the Newman School and is accepted at Princeton University, despite an unexceptional academic record. At Princeton he befriends Edmund Wilson (who will become a critic and author) and John Peale Bishop (who will become a poet and novelist). Fitzgerald spends much of his time in extracurricular activities, including writing scripts and lyrics for the Triangle Club, Princeton’s drama club. D. H. Lawrence publishes
Sons and Lovers.
1914
World War I begins.
1915
Fitzgerald meets and falls in love with Ginevra King, a young girl from a wealthy Chicago family. His affair with Ginevra, who is possibly a model for some of his fictional characters, amounts to several dates and a ream of passionate letters. Fitzgerald’s extracurricular activities take a toll on his grades, and he leaves Princeton, ostensibly because of illness. Europe is engulfed by war.
1916
Fitzgerald returns to Princeton.
1917
His relationship with Ginevra dies down. In January Fitzgerald. publishes
The Debutante,
a play inspired by his affair with her, in the
Nassau Literary Magazine.
America declares war against Germany, and Fitzgerald enlists in the army as a second lieutenant. He is stationed in Fort Leavenworth , Kansas, and begins writing a novel,
The Romantic Egotist.
T. S. Eliot publishes
Prufrock and Other Observations.
1918
On leave from the army, Fitzgerald returns to Princeton and completes his novel. His mentor, author Shane Leslie, recommends it to Scribner’s. Fitzgerald is stationed first in Georgia and then near Montgomery, Alabama, where he meets Zelda Sayre, the wayward daughter of an Alabama state Supreme Court judge. His novel is rejected. World War I ends; Fitzgerald never sees active service.
1919
Fitzgerald is discharged from the army and becomes engaged to Zelda. Although he finds work in a New York advertising agency, Zelda breaks off their engagement, worried about his financial prospects. Fitzgerald returns to his parents’ house, where he rewrites his novel; retitled This Side of Paradise, it is accepted for publication by Scribner’s. Prohibition begins.
1920
Fitzgerald and Zelda renew their engagement. He publishes stories in the
Saturday Evening Post
and
Smart Set. This
Side
of Paradise
is published. Scott and Zelda are married in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York. The newlyweds move to Westport, Connecticut, where Fitzgerald works on
The Beautiful and Damned,
and then to New York.
Flappers and Philosophers,
Fitzgerald’s first collection of short stories, is published. Following the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment , women gain the right to vote.
1921
Scott and Zelda spend months traveling in England, France, and Italy. They return in August to Minnesota, where Zelda gives birth to a daughter, Frances Scott (“Scottie”).
1922
The Beautiful and Damned,
about the dissipated life of an artist and his wife, is published. Another collection of short stories,
Tales of the Jazz Age,
is published in September. The family moves to Great Neck, Long Island (New York). Fitzgerald’s drinking habit grows. T. S. Eliot’s
The Waste Land
and James Joyce’s
Ulysses
are published.
1923
The Vegetable,
a play the Fitzgeralds thought would make them wealthy, is published but not produced. Jazz musician Duke Ellington first plays in New York.
1924
The family moves to the French Riviera, where Zelda has an affair with Edouard Jozan, a French pilot. Fitzgerald drafts his masterpiece,
The Great Gatsby.
The Fitzgeralds befriend wealthy American expatriates Gerald and Sara Murphy. The Fitzgeralds spend several months in Rome.
1925
The Great Gatsby
is published. Fitzgerald moves his family to Paris, where he meets Ernest Hemingway. Gangster Al Capone rises to the top of organized crime in Chicago.
1926
Fitzgerald publishes
All the Sad Young Men,
a collection of stories that includes one of his best, “The Rich Boy,” which examines how wealth influences character. The family spends most of the year in the Riviera, returning to America
1927
in December. Ernest Hemingway publishes The Sun Also Rises. Fitzgerald moves with Zelda to Hollywood, California, to write a screenplay. They move again, to Delaware, where Zelda begins ballet lessons. Virginia Woolf’s
To the Lighthouse
is published. Charles Lindbergh completes the first nonstop, solo flight across the Atlantic.
1928
The
Saturday Evening Post
publishes “The Scandal Detectives ,” the first of a series of stories based on Fitzgerald’s youth. The family moves again to Paris, where Zelda’s ballet training damages her health and leads to marital problems. The family returns to Delaware in the fall.
1929
Once again the family goes back to Europe. The American stock market crashes, and the Great Depression begins. Zelda publishes “The Original Follies Girl” in
College Humor.
1930
In April Zelda suffers the first of a series of nervous breakdowns and is sent to a sanatorium in Switzerland where she will spend the next sixteen months.
1931
Fitzgerald travels alone to America to attend his father’s funeral . He accepts an offer from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) to work on a screenplay in Hollywood.
1932
Zelda suffers another collapse and is hospitalized in Baltimore . She will be an inpatient or an outpatient at a sanatorium for the rest of her life. Fitzgerald moves to Baltimore to join his wife. Zelda publishes an autobiographical novel,
Save Me the Waltz,
completed in the clinic.
1933
Prohibition ends. Adolf Hitler becomes chancellor of Germany . Gertrude Stein publishes
The Autobiograpby of Alice B. Toklas.
1934
Zelda suffers a third breakdown and again enters a sanatorium . Fitzgerald publishes
Tender Is the Night,
a novel about a psychiatrist in Europe who marries one of his patients and eventually unravels. Henry Miller publishes
Tropic of Cancer.
1935
Taps at Reveille,
Fitzgerald’s fourth short-story collection, is published. Unsettled, he moves back and forth between Baltimore and North Carolina.
1936
Fitzgerald’s confessional “Crack-Up” essays, which describe his sense of emotional depletion, appear in Esquire.
1937
Financially strained, Fitzgerald accepts a lucrative scriptwriting contract with MGM. In December, the six-month contract is renewed for one year. He starts writing the screenplay for
Three Comrades,
his only script to make it to film. He begins an affair with gossip columnist Sheilah Graham that will last until his death.
1939
Fitzgerald, whose MGM contract had not been renewed at the end of 1938, starts work on a screenplay for United Artists but is fired after a drinking binge. Later that year he works as a freelance screenwriter in Hollywood. He starts
The Last Tycoon,
a novel about life in Hollywood. He is hospitalized twice following drinking bouts. World War II begins.
1940
With
The Last Tycoon
only half finished, F. Scott Fitzgerald dies of a heart attack on December 21, in Graham’s Hollywood apartment. He is buried in the Rockville Union Cemetery in Maryland.
1941
The Last Tycoon
is published.
1948
Zelda Fitzgerald dies in a fire at a hospital in North Cartery olina.
INTRODUCTION

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