F. Scott Fitzgerald  September 24, 1896: Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born in St. Paul, Minnesota  His father, Edward Fitzgerald failed as a manufacturer of wicker furniture in St. Paul, and he became a salesman for Procter & Gamble in upstate New York. After he was dismissed in 1908, when his son was twelve, the family returned to St. Paul and lived comfortably on his mother, Mollie Fitzgerald's inheritance. Fitzgerald attended the St. Paul Academy; his first writing to appear in print was a detective story in the school newspaper when he was thirteen  Fitzgerald went to Princeton University, but did not graduate  1917: Fitzgerald joined the army and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the infantry

Fitzgerald Meets Zelda!  1918: Fitzgerald was assigned to Camp Sheridan, near Montgomery, Alabama  Fell in love with Zelda Sayre, the youngest daughter of an Alabama Supreme Court judge  1919: The war ended just before Fitzgerald was to be sent overseas  He went to New York City to seek his fortune, but Zelda was unwilling to wait and broke their engagement.

 1919: Fitzgerald worked to create a publishable work  March 26, 1920: The publication of This Side of Paradise made the twenty-four-year-old Fitzgerald famous almost overnight, and a week later he married Zelda in New York  They embarked on an extravagant life as young celebrities  Fitzgerald’s endeavored to earn a solid literary reputation but playboy image his impeded the proper assessment of his work  October 1921: birth of their only child Frances Scott (Scottie) Fitzgerald was born Frances Scott (Scottie) Fitzgerald was born

Making The Great Gatsby  Spring of 1924: The Fitzgeralds went to France seeking tranquility so that Fitzgerald could complete his novel  Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby during the summer and fall in Valescure near St. Raphael, at the same time his marriage was being damaged by Zelda's involvement with a French naval aviator  : The Fitzgeralds went to Rome, where he revised and then published The Great Gatsby  Fitzgerald's achievement received critical praise, but sales of Gatsby were disappointing

The American Dream  February 1932: Zelda had had a nervous breakdown in 1930 and suffered a relapse in She entered Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore where she spent the rest of her life as a resident or outpatient of sanitariums  December 21, 1940: F. Scott Fitzgerald died of a heart attack  Fitzgerald believed himself somewhat of a failure, and his work was, for the most part, neglected  The Fitzgerald revival occurred between 1945 and 1950  By 1960 Fitzgerald had achieved a secure place among America's enduring writers—among many reasons--because The Great Gatsby is a work that examines the theme of the American Dream

Fitzgerald The Writer  Critics were reluctant to accord Fitzgerald full marks as a serious craftsman due to his reputation as a drinker and “playboy”  His reputation perpetuated the myth that he was an irresponsible writer; yet he was a painstaking reviser whose fiction went through layers of drafts.  When critics objected to Fitzgerald's concern with love and success, his response was: "But, my God! it was my material, and it was all I had to deal with."  Fitzgerald became identified with The Jazz Age because it was the age in which he lived and wrote and he so accurately understood that “it was an age of miracles, it was an age of art, it was an age of excess, and it was an age of satire.”