The inventor of the Jazz Age, F. Scott Fitzgerald, is widely regarded as one of the greatest American authors of the twentieth century. His writing is largely paradigmatic of that same age, linking him directly to the Lost Generation of the 1920’s. His most prolific theme is that of youth and beauty being contrasted with age and despair. With a fair few of his novels and short stories having been adapted into films his work has continued to reach an increasingly wide audience since his death in 1940.
“Well, three months before I was born, my mother lost her other two children … I think I started then to be a writer.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Fitzgerald spent his formative years in Buffalo, New York. He attended Catholic primary schools due to his devoutly religious parents. He is reported, even then, to have been unusually bright and determined, with a fast growing love for literature. His mother was doting and, with an unconventional approach to education, ensured that Fitzgerald attended Holy Angels Covent (His first Primary School) only half day and that he was allowed to pick which half.
When he was twelve the family moved to Minnesota where he attended St. Paul Academy. His first piece of writing was published when he was thirteen years old – a detective story in the school newspaper. When he was fifteen years old he was sent to Newman School in Hackensack, New Jersey; a prestigious Catholic prep school. Here he met Father Sigourney Fay who became an important mentor to him and encourager of his writing.
In 1913 Fitzgerald graduated and decided to attend Princeton in order to further his literary skill. Here he became friends with noted writers and critics Edmund Wilson and John Peale Bishop, wrote for the Princeton Triangle Club and the Princeton Tiger and was involved in the American Whig-Cliosophic Society - the same society which Barack Obama presides over today and which is recognized for the formation of some of America’s most accomplished orators.
His involvement in the Princeton Triangle club – a musical/comedy society – resulted in the submission of his first novel to Charles Scribner’s Sons for publication. The novel was ultimately rejected although the writing was praised.
His Princeton coursework ultimately suffered as he ardently pursued his writing. In 1917 he was put on academic probation and he dropped out of Princeton to join the army. The sudden fears of his possible imminent death, and without literary success, lead Fitzgerald to hastily produce a novel called The Romantic Egotist. This he wrote in its entirety and submitted for publication in the weeks before he reported for duty. The reviewer at Charles Scribner’s Sons once again rejected the novel but, noting it for its originality, encouraged Fitzgerald to submit more work in the future.
Whilst in the army, he was stationed at camp Sheridan, outside of Montgomery, Alabama, where he met Zelda Sayre. The “golden girl” of Montgomery youth society with a wealthy family background, Zelda was to Fitzgerald what Daisy would eventually be to Gatsby. He fell in love with her and, when he was discharged from the army, without ever having been deployed, in a desperate bid to win her hand in marriage, he moved to New York City chasing after the possibility of a lucrative career in advertising.
Convinced that he would soon be making a substantial living, Zelda accepted his proposal; however, after some time had passed and working at the advertising firm had still not earned him enough money to support the kind of lifestyle she expected, she broke off the engagement.
Dismayed, Fitzgerald moved back in with his parents and accepted a job repairing car roofs in order to bring in some kind of income whilst he wrote. During this time he reworked The Romantic Egotist, renaming it This Side of Paradise. A semi-autobiographical account of his years at Princeton, the book was accepted for publication towards the end of 1919. Zelda and Fitzgerald promptly resumed their engagement.
The book was published in early 1920 and became one of the most popular books of the year. Zelda and Fitzgerald were married that year and in October 1921, their daughter Frances Scott Fitzgerald – known affectionately as “Scottie” – was born. They soon began vacationing in France.
Paris in the 1920’s was to prove the most important developmental period in Fitzgerald’s writing; it was here that he wrote The Beautiful and The Damned and The Great Gatsby. Surprisingly The Great Gatsby, although now considered to be a literary masterpiece, received little attention or acclaim in its time.
During this period he befriended Earnest Hemmingway and wrote short stories for magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post, Collier’s Weekly and Esquire. He sold a number of his stories to Hollywood in an act that both he and Hemmingway referred to as “Whoring”. Hemmingway incidentally did not get along with Zelda, believing her to be insane and feeding her husband alcohol in an attempt to get him away from his work.
This was ultimately to be proven true when in 1932 Zelda was committed to a psychiatric unit for the schizophrenia she had developed in 1930. It was a hard time for Fitzgerald, but he ultimately channelled it into his work, writing what would eventually become Tender is The Night - the last novel of his that would be published while he was still alive.
Zelda and Fitzgerald became increasingly estranged. Their situation worsened when Zelda wrote and published her own fictionalised version of their lives called Save Me the Last Waltz. Fitzgerald insisted on making changes to the manuscript prior to publishing and convinced her doctors to no longer allow her to write using what he called ‘His Material’ - referring to the events of their relationship.
In the last three years of his life Fitzgerald moved to Hollywood, writing scripts for MGM and working on his fifth novel, Love of The Last Tycoon, which he would never finish and would be published posthumously. He made fun of himself being a Hollywood hack through Pat Hobby, the main character of a popular series he wrote consisting of seventeen short stories.
Fitzgerald’s death came suddenly; dying young at age 44, he left behind his daughter, his wife and his lover, Sheila Graham. He had been an alcoholic since his Princeton days; drinking heavily for most of his life, his health was resultantly poor, which lead to the onset of recurring tuberculosis in the 1930’s. He also suffered from two heart attacks. The first occurred in the mid 1930’s the last, in 1940, was fatal.
Fitzgerald’s writing has influenced the likes of T.S. Eliot, Charles Jackson, J.D Salinger and Richard Yates. Since the 21st Century millions of copies of his works have been sold and The Great Gatsby solicited as a high school set work in many countries. As the man who wrote The Great American Novel Fitzgerald’s legacy lives on in the mind of anyone who can appreciate what it is to look at the society around you and find it lacking.
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