Mariam Omar

Honors English 10

April 8 2018

F. Scott Fitzgerald Biography

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born into a Catholic upper-middle class family on

September 24 1896 in Saint Paul, Minnesota. His father, Edward Fitzgerald was described “as an

unsuccessful worker” (Britannica), he worked as a wicker furniture salesman and when the

business failed, he started working for Proctor and Gamble. He lived the first decade of his life in

Buffalo, New York as his father worked for Procter and Gamble there. In Buffalo, he has began

to show his true interest for literature at school. When his dad got fired from the company, his

family returned to Minnesota where he attended multiple schools.He met Father Sigourney Fay

at Newman School, who noticed his developing talent with literature and encouraged him to

pursue his ambitions.

After graduating in 1913, he decided to go to New Jersey to attend Princeton University

where he continued his writing developments. After 4 years, he dropped out and joined the army

where he was stationed at ​Fort Leavenworth​ and was a student of Dwight Eisenhower. Because

we was worried that he might die in ​the first World War​ and not fulfilling his dreams, he wrote

The Romantic Egotis​t, a semi-autobiography about his undergraduate years in university, in the

weeks before reporting for duty. Even though Scribner’s rejected the book, they noted his

originality and encouraged him to work harder to publish more books in the future.

While he was assigned to Camp Sheridan in Montgomery, Alabama, he met Zelda Sayre

in a country club and fell in love with her. In his words, he described her as the “golden girl” of
Montgomery society. After the war ended in 1918, he moved back to New York City to launch a

career in advertising to support himself financially to be able to marry Zelda. She accepted his

marriage proposal but then broke it off because he still wasn’t able to support their financial

needs. He then revised ​The Romantic Egotist​, renaming it to ​The Side of Paradise​ and it was

finally accepted and published by Scribner’s. The book launched his writing career, became

instant success, and sold over 40,000 copies in the first year. This provided him a stable income

to resume his engagement with Zelda. They got married and had one daughter, Frances Scott

Fitzgerald in 1921.

F. Scott Fitzgerald was known as a heavy alcoholic during his college years and the

1920s, ruining his health by the 1930s. According to his biographer, Fitzgerald suffered mild

tuberculosis attack both in 1919 and 1929. He lived with Sheilah ​Graham at the time and one

day she saw him jump from his armchair, grab the mantelpiece, gasp, and fall to the floor. She

called over his manager to assist him but Fitzgerald was dead by that time. ​According to

Britannica, Fitzgerald died at the age 44 from a heart attack with ​The Last Tycoon​ half finished.

Paris in the 1920’s had such a strong influence on Fitzgerald’s literary work as he made

several journeys to there. “The Jazz Age” was a name for the 1920’s Fitzgerald invented himself

as it was the year of economic prosperity, cultural flowering, and shaking up of social mores.

This era defined his life as a writer when he reached the peak of fame after he published ​The

Great Gatsby​ in 1925, which captured the era’s mood and style. During the Jazz Age, Fitzgerald

dropped 4 novels, ​The Great Gatsby, The Beautiful and Damned, The Side of Paradise, ​and

Tender Is the Nigh​t​ along with ​The Last Tycoon​ novel that was published after his death. This era

continued successfully for 10 years until Fitzgerald said it “leaped to a spectacular death in
October 1929” In 1931, he dropped an essay called “Echoes of the Jazz Age” where he wrote

that “"the present writer already looks back to it with nostalgia. It bore him up, flattered him and

gave him more money than he had dreamed of, simply for telling people that he felt as they did,

that something had to be done with all the nervous energy stored up and unexpended in the War"

(Shmoop). Oddly, even though he was a successful writer during his life, he became more

famous after he died. The literary works that he has published during the Jazz Age became his

legacy that people still read almost a decade later.