Despite its lackluster debut, The Great Gatsby is now hailed by some literary critics as the ' Great American Novel'. His third novel, The Great Gatsby (1925), received generally favorable reviews but was a commercial failure, selling fewer than 23,000 copies in its first year. During this period, Fitzgerald frequented Europe, where he befriended modernist writers and artists of the ' Lost Generation' expatriate community, including Ernest Hemingway. To maintain his affluent lifestyle, he wrote numerous stories for popular magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post, Collier's Weekly, and Esquire.

His second novel, The Beautiful and Damned (1922), propelled him further into the cultural elite. The novel became a cultural sensation and cemented his reputation as one of the eminent writers of the decade. Although she initially rejected Fitzgerald's marriage proposal due to his lack of financial prospects, Zelda agreed to marry him after he published the commercially successful This Side of Paradise (1920). While stationed in Alabama, he met Zelda Sayre, a Southern debutante who belonged to Montgomery's exclusive country-club set. Owing to a failed romantic relationship with Chicago socialite Ginevra King, he dropped out in 1917 to join the United States Army during World War I. He attended Princeton University where he befriended future literary critic Edmund Wilson. Although he achieved temporary popular success and fortune in the 1920s, Fitzgerald received critical acclaim only after his death and is now widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century.īorn into a middle-class family in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Fitzgerald was raised primarily in New York state. During his lifetime, he published four novels, four story collections, and 164 short stories. He is best known for his novels depicting the flamboyance and excess of the Jazz Age-a term he popularized in his short story collection Tales of the Jazz Age.

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (Septem– December 21, 1940) was an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer.

Muhteşem Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald