In this biography
Quick facts
- Born
- 1896
- Died
- 1940
- Birthplace
- St. Paul, Minnesota, United States
- Country
- United States
- Nationality
- Not independently established
- Known for
- The Great Gatsby, This Side of Paradise and Tender Is the Night
Why this life matters
His archive connects the public image of an era with the less visible labour of writing, revising and publishing.
Timeline
Key moments
First novel
This Side of Paradise appeared shortly before Fitzgerald’s marriage.
The Great Gatsby
The novel followed manuscript and galley revision.
Death
His writing career left fiction, journalism and film-related material.
An early life in writing
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1896. At Princeton, which he entered in 1913, he wrote for student publications and the Triangle Club. He left without graduating and served in the army during the First World War. He met Zelda Sayre while stationed in Alabama; they married in 1920, shortly after This Side of Paradise appeared. Publication turned a developing writer into a public literary figure, but it did not end the practical work of earning money through print.
Sources for this section: [1]
Novels and a range of professional work
Fitzgerald followed his first novel with The Beautiful and Damned in 1922, The Great Gatsby in 1925 and Tender Is the Night in 1934. Short stories and later Hollywood work were also part of his career. Princeton’s Additional Papers preserve categories ranging from fiction and articles to dramatic and motion-picture scripts. He died in 1940. The collection’s breadth resists an account in which one famous novel stands in for all the kinds of writing he undertook.
Sources for this section: [1]
The labour behind Gatsby
Princeton’s records show Fitzgerald developing The Great Gatsby through an autograph manuscript, a typescript and corrected galleys. He completed much of the manuscript in France in 1924, then continued revising during production. Maxwell Perkins was the publishing correspondent in that process. This sequence makes the novel a product of repeated decisions, not a spontaneous transcription of its author’s social life. The surviving objects let researchers ask where and when changes occurred.
Narrative judgement and public identity
In the published novel, Nick’s telling shapes how Gatsby becomes known to a reader. Report, observation and retrospective judgement occupy different positions within that telling. This is useful when considering Fitzgerald’s reputation as a chronicler of an age: a fictional narrator is also a device for organising and questioning what can be known. His significance includes that formal work as well as the social settings associated with his name.
Sources for this section: [4]
Quick answers
Frequently asked questions about F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Did Fitzgerald graduate from Princeton?
- No. He attended and wrote for student organisations but left without a degree.
- Did Gatsby change during printing?
- Yes. Princeton’s account documents corrections and additions to its galleys.
Keep exploring
Lives connected to this story
- Ernest Hemingway
Compare separate American literary careers and approaches to prose.
- T. S. Eliot
Compare another documented relationship between drafts, editors and publication.
Sources and further reading
Explore the evidence
These references support the biography and offer further reading. Official records, first-person accounts and independent reporting provide different perspectives; image records document attribution and licensing.
- 1. Princeton University LibraryF. Scott Fitzgerald Additional Papers
The finding aid was read; private letters and complete manuscript images were not treated as inspected.
- 2. Princeton University LibraryThe Great Gatsby manuscript and galleys now online
The canonical Princeton news URL is used rather than the index.php redirect.
- 3. Princeton University LibraryThe Book in the Archive
- 4. F. Scott Fitzgerald / Project GutenbergThe Great Gatsby