HIS LIFE AND WORK

A PRESENTATION BY SHAUN GILROY

F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Early Years

• Born Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald on September 24, 1896

• Upper-middle class Irish Catholic family

• Attended Nardin Academy in Buffalo, NY from around 1903-1908

• Attended St. Paul Academy from 1908-1911. Here he published his first story

• After graduation attended Newman School—a prep school in Hackensack, NJ

The College Years

• Entered Princeton in 1913

• Wrote for scripts and lyrics for The Princeton Triangle Club, and articles for The Princeton Tiger and Nassau Literary Magazine

• Dropped out and joined the US Army in 1917

Soldier Days

• Commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Infantry

• Convinced he would die, he quickly wrote his first novel, The Romantic Egoist

• Assigned to Camp Sheridan in Alabama, where he met Zelda Sayre.

• The War ended before he was shipped overseas

Boy Meets Girl

• Scott and Zelda began an intense romance in 1918

• Scott went to New York to “make his fortune” so they could be married…Zelda was unwilling to wait or live on his small salary, so she broke their engagement in 1919

• Heartbroken, he quit his job and moved back to St. Paul to write

This Side of Paradise

• In St. Paul, he reworked his first novel, The Romantic Egoist into This Side of Paradise—the story of quintessential “lost generation” youth Armory Blaine

• The novel was accepted by Scribners and would be published early in 1920

Early Success

• Between the acceptance and publication of This Side of Paradise, he wrote short stories for magazines

• This Side of Paradise published March 26, 1920…rocketing Scott to instant fame

• He and Zelda Sayre were married a week later

The Roaring Twenties

• Zelda and Scott were celebrities, known for their extravagant lifestyle

• Their first and only child, Frances Scott (“Scottie”) was born in October 1921

• His second novel, The Beautiful and the Damned was published in 1922

• Scott regularly went into debt and continued to write short stories to keep up with their lifestyle

Europe

• In 1924, the Fitzgeralds moved to France and traveled Europe, where he wrote The Great Gatsby

• Became part of the circle of literary expatriates in Paris

• The Great Gatsby was published in 1925 to relatively poor sales

Things Fall Apart

• The family returned to America in late 1926 - Scott had considerable trouble with his fourth novel

• Zelda began to exhibit strange behavior in 1929, and suffered a schizophrenic breakdown in Europe 1930. Scott wrote short stories to pay the bills for her treatment

• They returned to America late in 1931, but in 1932, Zelda relapsed and was checked into Johns Hopkins hospital

The Crack Up

• Tender is the Night was published in 1934. It was a commercial failure

• Fitzgerald called this period of his life “The Crack Up” By 1936, he was having health problems and deep in debt. He couldn’t sell stories and went to Hollywood alone to find work

• He received little acclaim, but he did make enough money to get out of debt

The End

• Scott fell in love with columnist Sheila Graham in 1937; they remained together until his death

• Paid the bills writing scripts and short stories for Esquire

• Died halfway through his final novel, The Last Tycoon – on December 21, 1940. He was sure he was a failure and would go unremembered.

"I want to write something new --

something extraordinary and

beautiful and simple & intricately patterned."

from a letter to his editor in July 1922

A New Beginning

• F. Scott Fitzgerald fell into obscurity through the 40’s and early 50’s

• The Great Gatsby was republished in 1953, and gained wider readership and acceptance

• In the 1960s, a Fitzgerald “revival” began—scholars began studying his works in earnest again

• Scott is now considered one of the preeminent authors of 20th century American literature

"SO WE BEAT ON, BOATS AGAINST THE CURRENT, BORNE BACK CEASELESSLY INTO THE PAST.

The Great Gatsby