F.

SCOTT FIZTGERALD

Francis Scott Fitzgerald was born on September 26, 1896, in St. Paul Minnesota. He was the only son to
Edward and Mary Fitzgerald. He viewed himself as the heir of his father tradition and also, “straight
1850 potato-famine Irish.”These made him feel that American life seemed both vulgar and dazzling
promising. He was determined to realize his intensely romantic imagination which he termed as “a
heightened sensitivity to promises of life.”At both St. Paul Academy (1908-11) and Newman School
(1911-13) he did not make to become popular but at Princeton he almost realize his dream of brilliant
success. At the university he became prominent and he was able to meet and make lifelong friendship
with Edmund Wilson and John Peale Bishop. He acquired leadership positions in socially important
Triangle club and dramatic club; he fell in love with Geneva King one of the beauties of her generation.
He lost Geneva and flunked out of Princeton. When he returned to Princeton he had lost all the
positions he had coveted. In November 1917 he left to join army.

In July 1918, while stationed near Montgomery, Alabama, he met and fell in love with the daughter of
the Supreme Court judge Alabama Zelda Sayre. His determination to marry Zelda and achieve instant
Success pushed him to leave for New York where he secured advertising job at $90 a month. Zelda
broke their engagement after an epic drunk. Fitzgerald decided to go back St. Paul to rewrite for the
second time the novel he had begun in Princeton. In the spring of 1920 it was published and he married
Zelda. The pair got their daughter and only child Frances (“Scottie”) the following year.