F. Scott Fitzgerald

Described as

American writer (1896–1940)

Other names

Francis Scott Fitzgerald, Scott Fitzgerald, Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald

Born

September 24, 1896 · 14 references

Died

December 21, 1940 · 15 references

Born in

Saint Paul · 4 references

Died in

Hollywood · 3 references

Buried in

St. Mary's Catholic Cemetery · 1 reference

Cause of death

myocardial infarction · 1 reference

Citizen of

United States · 1 reference

Occupation

writer · 3 references; novelist; short story writer; screenwriter; playwright

Education

St. Paul Academy and Summit School (1908–1911) · 1 reference; Nardin Academy (1905–1908) · 1 reference; Princeton University (1913–1917) · 1 reference

Known for

The Great Gatsby; Tender Is the Night

Awards

New Jersey Hall of Fame (2009) · 1 reference

Spouse

Zelda Fitzgerald (1920–1940) · 1 reference

Children

Frances Scott Fitzgerald

Father

Edward Fitzgerald

Mother

Mary McQuillan · 1 reference

Religion

Catholic Church

Lived in

Saint Paul · 1 reference; Buffalo · 1 reference; Princeton · 1 reference; Hollywood · 1 reference; Chesapeake Bay · 1 reference

Height

1.70 m (5 ft 7 in) · 1 reference

Wikipedias with a page

123

Wikidata item Q93354 (wikidata.org/wiki/Q93354), public domain (CC0). Copied November 13, 2026.

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940), widely known as F. Scott Fitzgerald or simply Scott Fitzgerald, was an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. He is most notable for his novels depicting the flamboyance and excess of the Jazz Age, a term that he popularized in his short story collection Tales of the Jazz Age. He published four novels, four story collections, and 164 short stories. He achieved transient success and fortune in the 1920s, but did not receive critical acclaim until after his death. He is now widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century.
Fitzgerald was born into a middle-class family in Saint Paul, Minnesota, but he was raised primarily in New York. He attended Princeton University, where he befriended the future literary critic Edmund Wilson. He had a failed romantic relationship with Chicago socialite Ginevra King and dropped out of Princeton in 1917 to join the Army during World War I. While stationed in Alabama, he met Zelda Sayre, a Southern debutante who belonged to Montgomery's exclusive country-club set. She initially rejected Fitzgerald's marriage proposal due to his lack of financial prospects, but she agreed to marry him after the success of his debut novel This Side of Paradise (1920). The novel became a cultural sensation and cemented his reputation as one of the eminent writers of the decade. He struggled with alcoholism throughout the decade.
The Beautiful and Damned (1922) brought Fitzgerald further fame. To maintain his affluent lifestyle, he wrote numerous stories for popular magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post, Collier's Weekly, and Esquire. He frequented Europe during this period, where he befriended modernist writers and artists of the "Lost Generation" expatriate community, including Ernest Hemingway. The Great Gatsby (1925) received generally favorable reviews but was a commercial failure, selling fewer than 23,000 copies in its first year. Despite its lackluster debut, The Great Gatsby is hailed by some literary critics as the "Great American Novel". Fitzgerald finished Tender Is the Night (1934) following the deterioration of his wife's mental health and her placement in a mental institution for schizophrenia.
Fitzgerald struggled financially because of the declining popularity of his works during the Great Depression. He moved to Hollywood where he embarked on an unsuccessful career as a screenwriter. While living in Hollywood, he cohabited with columnist Sheilah Graham, his final companion before his death. He attained sobriety only to die of a heart attack in 1940 at age 44. Edmund Wilson edited and published the unfinished The Last Tycoon (1941). Wilson described Fitzgerald's style: "romantic, but also cynical; he is bitter as well as ecstatic; astringent as well as lyrical. He casts himself in the role of playboy, yet at the playboy he incessantly mocks. He is vain, a little malicious, of quick intelligence and wit, and has the Irish gift for turning language into something iridescent and surprising."

Born, in its opening lines

September 24, 1896

Died, in its opening lines

December 21, 1940

From the Wikipedia article “F. Scott Fitzgerald” (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._Scott_Fitzgerald), by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Copied November 13, 2026; not changed.