F. Scott Fitzgerald

F. Scott Fitzgerald
Fitzgerald c. 1921, appearing in The World's Work's June 1921 issue
Born	Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (1896-09-24)September 24, 1896 St. Paul, Minnesota, U.S.
Died	December 21, 1940(1940-12-21) (aged 44) Hollywood, California, U.S.
Resting place	Saint Mary's Cemetery
Occupation	Novelist, short story writer
Nationality	American
Education	Princeton University (no degree)
Period	1920–40
Spouse	Zelda Sayre (1920–1940; his death)
Children	Frances Scott Fitzgerald
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Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940), known professionally as F. Scott Fitzgerald, was an American novelist and short story writer, whose works illustrate the Jazz Age. While he achieved limited success in his lifetime, he is now widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. Fitzgerald is considered a member of the "Lost Generation" of the 1920s. He finished four novels: This Side of Paradise, The Beautiful and Damned, The Great Gatsby, and Tender Is the Night. A fifth, unfinished novel, The Last Tycoon, was published posthumously. Fitzgerald also wrote numerous short stories, many of which treat themes of youth and promise, and age and despair.

Born in 1896 in Saint Paul, Minnesota, to an upper-middle-class family, Fitzgerald was named after his famous second cousin, three times removed on his father's side, Francis Scott Key, but was always known as plain Scott Fitzgerald. He was also named after his deceased sister, Louise Scott Fitzgerald, one of two sisters who died shortly before his birth. "Well, three months before I was born," he wrote as an adult, "my mother lost her other two children ... I think I started then to be a writer."

His father was Edward Fitzgerald, of Irish and English ancestry, who had moved to St. Paul from Maryland after the Civil War, and was described as "a quiet gentlemanly man with beautiful Southern manners". His mother was Mary "Molly" McQuillan Fitzgerald, the daughter of an Irish immigrant who had made his fortune in the wholesale grocery business. Fitzgerald was the first cousin once removed of Mary Surratt, hanged in 1865 for conspiring to assassinate Abraham Lincoln.