F. Scott Fitzgerald
American writer whose novel The Great Gatsby portrayed the flamboyance and excess of the Jazz Age Show bio
Bio
F. Scott Fitzgerald fell in love with Ginevra King, a wealthy Chicago debutante, while at Princeton. He reportedly heard her father say that "poor boys shouldn't think of marrying rich girls." Fitzgerald joined the Army after she rejected him, hoping to die in World War I.
He rushed out a novel in three months, hoping to publish it before he died. Fitzgerald won Zelda Sayre, a Southern debutante, only after his first published novel made money.
He saw his novel The Great Gatsby flop, selling fewer than 23,000 copies its first year. Fitzgerald had modeled its Daisy Buchanan on Ginevra King, the rich girl who turned him away.