Zelda Fitzgerald’s Followers (621)

Add New
Videos

How Zelda Sayre met F. Scott Fitzgerald according to Winter

Add a comment

Zelda Fitzgerald

Born

in Montgomery, Alabama, The United States

July 24, 1900

Died

March 10, 1948

Genre

Literature & Fiction, Short Stories

edit data

Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald, born Zelda Sayre, was a novelist and the wife of writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. She was an icon of the 1920s—dubbed by her husband "the first American Flapper". After the success of his first novel This Side of Paradise (1920), the Fitzgeralds became celebrities. The newspapers of New York saw them as embodiments of the Jazz Age and the Roaring Twenties: young, rich, beautiful, and energetic.

Zelda Sayre grew up in a wealthy and prim southern family. Even as a child her audacious behavior was the subject of Montgomery gossip. Shortly after finishing high school, she met F. Scott Fitzgerald at a dance. A whirlwind courtship ensued. Though he had professed his infatuation, she continued seeing other men. Despite fights and Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald, born Zelda Sayre, was a novelist and the wife of writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. She was an icon of the 1920s—dubbed by her husband "the first American Flapper". After the success of his first novel This Side of Paradise (1920), the Fitzgeralds became celebrities. The newspapers of New York saw them as embodiments of the Jazz Age and the Roaring Twenties: young, rich, beautiful, and energetic.

Zelda Sayre grew up in a wealthy and prim southern family. Even as a child her audacious behavior was the subject of Montgomery gossip. Shortly after finishing high school, she met F. Scott Fitzgerald at a dance. A whirlwind courtship ensued. Though he had professed his infatuation, she continued seeing other men. Despite fights and a prolonged break-up, they married in 1920, and spent the early part of the decade as literary celebrities in New York. Later in the 1920s, they moved to Europe, recast as famous expatriates of the Lost Generation. While Scott received acclaim for The Great Gatsby and his short stories, and the couple socialized with literary luminaries like Ernest Hemingway, their marriage was a tangle of jealousy, resentment and acrimony. Scott used their relationship as material in his novels, even lifting snippets from Zelda's diary and assigning them to his fictional heroines. Seeking an artistic identity of her own, Zelda wrote magazine articles and short stories, and at 27 became obsessed with a career as a ballerina, practicing to exhaustion.

The strain of her tempestuous marriage, Scott's increasing alcoholism, and her growing instability presaged Zelda's admittance to a sanatorium in 1930. She was diagnosed with schizophrenia. While in a Maryland clinic, she wrote a semi-autobiographical novel, Save Me the Waltz, which was published in 1932. Scott was furious that she had used material from their life together, though he had done the same, such as in Tender Is the Night, published in 1934; the two novels provide contrasting portrayals of the couple's failing marriage.

Back in America, Scott went to Hollywood where he tried screenwriting and began an affair with the movie columnist Sheilah Graham. In 1936, Zelda entered the Highland Mental Hospital in Asheville, North Carolina. Scott died in Hollywood in 1940, having last seen Zelda a year and a half earlier. She spent her remaining years working on a second novel, which she never completed, and she painted extensively. In 1948, the hospital at which she had been a patient caught fire, causing her death. Interest in the Fitzgeralds resurged shortly after her death: the couple has been the subject of popular books, movies and scholarly attention. After a life as an emblem of the Jazz Age, Roaring Twenties, and Lost Generation, Zelda Fitzgerald posthumously found a new role: after a popular 1970 biography portrayed her as a victim of an overbearing husband, she became a feminist icon. ...more

Combine Editions
Zelda Fitzgerald’s books

Average rating: 3.76 · 6,070 ratings · 602 reviews · 26 distinct works • Similar authors

	Save Me the Waltz by Zelda Fitzgerald, Lucie Mikolajková (Translator), Harry T. Moore (Introduction) 3.55 avg rating — 3,525 ratings — published 1932 — 65 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Collected Writings by Zelda Fitzgerald, Mary Gordon (Introduction), Matthew J. Bruccoli (Editor) 4.02 avg rating — 390 ratings — published 1991 — 8 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Zelda, an Illustrated Life: The Private World of Zelda Fitzgerald by Zelda Fitzgerald, Peter Kurth (Goodreads Author) 4.24 avg rating — 148 ratings — published 1996 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Himbeeren mit Sahne im Ritz 3.67 avg rating — 87 ratings — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Sei per me la sola cosa al mondo: Lettere d'amore by Zelda Fitzgerald, Caterina Beghini (Translator) 3.75 avg rating — 63 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Iceberg: A story by Zelda Fitzgerald 3.23 avg rating — 22 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Scandalabra 3.40 avg rating — 20 ratings — published 1980	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Lahjakas tyttö by Zelda Fitzgerald, Pirjo Pakarinen (Translator) 1.75 avg rating — 8 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Ψήγματα by Zelda Fitzgerald, Μαρίνα Διάφα (Translator) liked it 3.00 avg rating — 2 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Artigos e Textos Jornalísticos by Zelda Fitzgerald, Clara Averbuck, Bruna Maia (Illustrator) 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — published 2021	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Zelda Fitzgerald…

Quotes by Zelda Fitzgerald

“Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold.”
― Zelda Fitzgerald

tags: love

9330 likes

“She refused to be bored chiefly because she wasn't boring.”
― Zelda Fitzgerald, The Collected Writings

tags: boredom

3189 likes

“I don't want to live, I want to love first and live incidentally.”
― Zelda Fitzgerald

tags: incidental, life, love

624 likes

See all Zelda Fitzgerald's quotes »

Polls

What shall we read in November, 2021? Books published in of before 1980.

Galveston, by Suzanne Morris

8 votes 33.3%

The Keepers of the House, by Shirley Ann Grau

6 votes 25.0%

Save Me the Waltz, by Zelda Fitzgerald

3 votes 12.5%

The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake

3 votes 12.5%

The Best Short Stories of O. Henry

3 votes 12.5%

The Golden Key and Other Short Stories, by James H. Street

1 vote 4.2%

24 total votes

3 comments

More...

Topics Mentioning This Author

topics	posts	views	last activity
The Seasonal Read...: By Blood or Marriage (25.2)	41	379	Aug 24, 2009 02:23PM
The Seasonal Read...: 30.5 (PJ Reads' Task - As Suggested By Tanja - Six Degrees of Separation)	348	413	May 26, 2010 07:44AM
Chicks On Lit: The Great Gatsby anyone?	92	78	Jan 24, 2011 05:36AM
Book Club/Troubles: A-Z Author Game	88	28	Nov 09, 2011 12:09PM
The Seasonal Read...: Fall Challenge 2012: Completed Tasks - DO NOT DELETE ANY POSTS IN THIS TOPIC	2321	722	Dec 28, 2012 03:29PM
The Next Best Boo...: Author Alphabet	3704	3047	Mar 14, 2013 03:16PM
The Next Best Boo...: Last Letter Game (Writers/Authors)	1687	1289	May 30, 2013 12:55PM

More…