[close] Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald, born September 24, 1896, was an American writer of novels and short stories, whose works have been seen as evocative of the Jazz Age, a term he himself allegedly coined. He is regarded as one of the greatest twentieth century writers. Fitzgerald was of the self-styled "Lost Generation," Americans born in the 1890s who came of age during World War I. He finished four novels, left a fifth unfinished, and wrote dozens of short stories that treat themes of youth, despair, and age.

Born on Cathedral Hill in St. Paul, Minnesota, to an upper-middle class Irish Catholic household, Fitzgerald was named after his famous relative Francis Scott Key, but was referred to as 'Scott'. He spent 1898–1901 and 1903–1908 in Buffalo, New York, where he attended Nardin Academy.[1] When his father was fired from Proctor & Gamble, the family moved back to Minnesota, where Fitzgerald attended St. Paul Academy in St. Paul from 1908–1911. His first piece of literature was published in his school newspaper when he was 13. He attended Newman School, a prep school in Hackensack, New Jersey, in 1911–1912, and then entered Princeton University in 1913 as a member of the Class of 1917. There he became friends with future critics and writers Edmund Wilson (Class of 1916) and John Peale Bishop (Class of 1917), and wrote for the Princeton Triangle Club.

A mediocre student throughout his three-years at Princeton, Fitzgerald dropped out in 1917 to enlist in the United States Army when the US entered World War I. Fitzgerald wrote a novel titled The Romantic Egotist, portions of which later largely were reincarnated as the first half of This Side of Paradise, while at Princeton, and edited the work at Camp Zachary Taylor and Camp Sheridan. When he submitted the novel to Charles Scribner's Sons, the editor praised the writing but ultimately rejected the book. The war ended shortly after Fitzgerald's enlistment. [close]