F. Scott Fitzgerald

F. Scott Fitzgerald was an American author that is well known as the chronicler (and namer) of the Jazz Age. Throughout his career he wrote five novels and many short stories.

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born 1896 in Minnesota. He attended Princeton University, where he was a member of the Princeton Triangle Club. He liked to drink and party and wrote his novels in order to support that lifestyle for his wife. The materialistic and hedonistic tendencies of his peers are reflected in his works, as is plenty of angst about the appropriateness of all that partying after WWI. While courting his future wife, Zelda, he completed his first novel This Side Of Paradise. The works that followed were a river of short stories, The Beautiful And Damned, Tender Is the Night, The Love Of The Last Tycoon, and his most famous work, The Great Gatsby. The critical and commercial popularity of Fitzgerald's work faded during his lifetime, and he finished his career as a script doctor in Hollywood. His critical reputation was revived following his death, with The Great Gatsby emerging as a strong contender for the Great American Novel.


 * The Great Gatsby
 * Tender Is the Night


 * Author Avatar: Amory in This Side of Paradise
 * Author Existence Failure: The Love Of The Last Tycoon wasn't finished by the time he kicked the bucket, but eventually got published after his friend Edmund Wilson finished it up using the manuscript.
 * Celebrity Paradox: In The Beautiful and Damned, one character mentioned a new book called This Side of Paradise that's just been released.
 * Doting Parent: Beatrice to Amory, This Side of Paradise.
 * God Is Dead: "A new generation dedicated more than the last to the fear of poverty and the worship of success; grown up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken." -- 
 * Good Shepherd / Irish Priest: Monsignor Darcy, Amory's mentor in This Side of Paradise.
 * Ivy League: Amory in This Side of Paradise attends Princeton -- just like Fitzgerald.
 * The One That Got Away: Rosalind in This Side Of Paradise.
 * The Roaring Twenties: Fitzgerald coined "the Jazz Age" and lived it up.