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Birth
Born Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald in St. Paul, Minnesota, only child to an upper-middle-class family. -
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Childhood
Family moves between New York and West Virginia due to his father's work for Proctor & Gamble. -
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Teenage Years
Father is fired from Proctor & Gamble, and family relocates to Minnesota, where Fitzgerald is enrolled in St. Paul's Academy before being sent to the Newman School in New Jersey on his own, both prestigious schools. -
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College Years
Fitzgerald excels in his high school studies, and is able to attend Princeton University. His focus largely lies in developing his writing skills and producing literature at the expense of his coursework, leading to academic underperformance, followed by dropping out. -
Military Service
Fitzgerald enlists in the army during the First World War; however, he is never deployed, and is discharged later within a year. -
Meeting Zelda
Fitzgerald is introduced to wealthy flapper Zelda Sayre at a country club in Alabama late in his service in the US military. He proposes to her soon into their relationship; she refuses on the grounds he cannot yet provide for her and her luxurious lifestyle. -
Marriage
Fitzgerald finally wins Zelda's hand in marriage in the wake of his financial success. -
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Married Life
The couple allows themselves a lifestyle of self-indulgence and publicized opulence, ignoring its disproportionality with Fitzgerald's income as a writer. They become known as the 'Golden Couple' in American and European high society. -
This Side of Paradise
Fitzgerald publishes his first novel which is met with critical acclaim. It tells the story of the post-World War One 'Lost Generation', their struggles in America, and their progressive culture. -
Childbirth
Zelda gives birth to their daughter, only child, and Fitzgerald's namesake, Francis Scott Fitzgerald. -
The Beautiful and Damned
One of Fitzgerald's more famous novels, it revolves around, ironically, a socialite couple and their collapsing marriage and overly expensive lives. Most contemporary critics dismiss the work as "depressing". -
Winter Dreams
Unlike much of Fitzgerald's literature at the time, this short story of his is recognized as phenomenal from the moment it is published. -
The Great Gatsby
Decidedly his magnum opus, Fitzgerald's novel about the tumultuous, tragic lives of an upper-class clique is regarded, at the time, as an average literary work. -
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Decline
The Great Depression sees the couple's irresponsible lifestyle finally catch up with them; Zelda's emotional and mental health deteriorates, resulting in regular hospitalizations from April 1930 till her death in March 1948. Fitzgerald also enters a state of depression and alcoholism as he constantly worries over his ailing wife, his immense amount of debt, and his literary's works poor reception. -
Death
The final, damaged episode of Fitzergald's life comes to abrupt end in the form of a heart attack at the age of 44. It takes decades for his bibliography to finally be celebrated the way it always deserved.
