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Fitzgerald attends St. Paul Academy, and it is there that he publishes his first piece of writing, at the age of 13. The piece is a detective story published in the school newspaper. -
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Fitzgerald attends the Newman School, a Catholic preparatory school in Hackensack, New Jersey. He meets Father Sigourney Fay, who recognizes Fitzgerald’s literary talent and encourages him to pursue writing. -
Fitzgerald enters Princeton University and writes for The Princeton Tiger, the school’s humor magazine. At Princeton he becomes a leading figure in literary life and writes scripts for the Triangle Club, a drama club at the university. -
November 2017 to join the army. During the summer of 1918 he is stationed near Montgomery, Alabama, and meets Zelda Sayre, daughter of an Alabama Supreme Court judge. -
His first book, This Side of Paradise, is published. The novel brings him fame and money. He marries Zelda in April. They become a celebrated couple. Writer Ring Lardner describes them as the prince and princess of their generation. -
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Fitzgerald’s second novel, The Beautiful and Damned, is published. Tales of the Jazz Age, a collection of short stories, is also published. -
While in France, Fitzgerald completes his masterpiece, The Great Gatsby. After the success of this book, he writes several brilliant short stories, but eight years will pass before his next novel is published. -
fter The Great Gatsby is published, Fitzgerald’s drinking becomes excessive, and Zelda suffers a mental breakdown in 1930. She spends the next year in European clinics. After she is released in 1931, they move back to the United States. She has a second breakdown in 1932 from which she never fully recovers. She publishes her first and only novel, Save Me the Waltz, which is based on the Fitzgeralds’ troubled marriage. -
Fitzgerald’s last completed novel, Tender Is the Night, is published. It is one of his most moving books but is commercially unsuccessful. -
n 1936 Zelda enters Highland Hospital in Asheville, North Carolina. In 1937 Fitzgerald moves to Hollywood and becomes a scriptwriter. He meets and falls in love with Sheilah Graham, a famous Hollywood gossip columnist. -
In 1939 he begins writing a novel about Hollywood entitled The Last Tycoon. The career of its hero, Monroe Stahr, is based on that of American film executive Irving Thalberg. -
Fitzgerald struggled with alcoholism throughout his life. It's likely that his heavy drinking contributed to his early death: Fitzgerald died of a heart attack on December 21, 1940, in Hollywood, California, at age 44. -
On the evening of March 10, 1948, a fire broke out in the Central Building at Highland Hospital where Zelda was staying. Zelda and 4 other women died in the fire.