-
F. Scott Fitzgerald Born
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald is born in St. Paul, Minnesota, the third of five children born to furniture manufacturer Edward Fitzgerald and Mary "Mollie" McQuillan, the daughter of an Irish immigrant. Scott and his sister Annabel are the only two Fitzgerald children to survive infancy. -
Zelda Fitzgerald born
Zelda Sayre is born in Montgomery, Alabama to Anthony Sayre and Minnie Machen. -
Fitzgerald's First Publication
At the age of 14, F. Scott Fitzgerald appears in print for the first time, with "The Mystery of the Raymond Mortgage" in the student publication St. Paul Academy Now and Then. -
Fitzgerald at Princeton
Fitzgerald enters Princeton University with the Class of 1917. He soon meets men who will remain lifelong friends and influences, including the writers Edmund Wilson and John Peale Bishop. -
U.S Army Services
On academic probation and close to flunking out of Princeton, Fitzgerald takes a commission as an infantry second lieutenant in the U.S. Army and leaves school to report for duty at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He never graduates from Princeton. Soon after reporting for military duty, he begins a novel entitled The Romantic Egoist -
Fitzgerald Meets Zelda Sayre
F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda Sayre meet at a country club dance in Montgomery, Alabama. A month later the publisher Scribners rejects The Romantic Egoist but, sensing promise in the young writer, encourages Fitzgerald to revise it and try again. -
This Side of Paradise
Fitzgerald is discharged from the Army in February. Hoping to marry Zelda, he takes an advertising job in New York. In June Zelda breaks the engagement due to Fitzgerald's lack of fame and wealth. Fitzgerald quits advertising, moves in with his parents in St. Paul and goes to work rewriting The Romantic Egoist. Editor Maxwell Perkins of Scribners accepts the new manuscript—now entitled This Side of Paradise—on 16 September. -
Marriage to Zelda Sayre
This Side of Paradise, Fitzgerald's first novel, is published. A week later, he and Zelda marry in St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York. -
Birth of Daughter Scottie Fitzgerald
The Fitzgeralds' first and only child is born, a daughter named Frances Scott "Scottie" Fitzgerald. The next month the family moves to St. Paul and lives there until June. -
The Beatiful and Damned
The Beautiful and Damned is published. -
The Great Gatsby
The Great Gatsby is published. The Fitzgeralds, who have been traveling about Europe, settle in Paris a few weeks later. -
The Great Crash
The U.S. stock market crashes, triggering the Great Depression. The Jazz Age is officially over. -
Zelda Fitzgerald's Nervous Breakdown
Zelda suffers her first nervous breakdown and spends much of the next year hospitalized in various clinics in Switzerland. In November Fitzgerald publishes the short story "One Trip Abroad," about an American couple who fall apart in Europe. -
Tender is Night
Tender is the Night is published. Zelda suffers her third mental breakdown. -
"The Crack-Up"
The first of Fitzgerald's three-part autobiographical essay "The Crack-Up," detailing his own mental breakdown, appears in Esquire magazine. The third and final part runs in April, the same month that Zelda is committed to Highland Hospital mental asylum in Asheville, North Carolina. She lives there, on and off, for the rest of her life. -
Francis Moves to Hollywood
Fitzgerald moves to Hollywood after signing a six-month contract from Metro Goldwyn Mayer, hoping that he'll work his way out of debt with screenplays. Within days of his arrival he meets a movie columnist named Sheilah Graham. They begin an affair that lasts until his death. Fitzgerald (who turns out to be not so great at screenwriting) starts work on his only credited screenplay, Three Comrades. -
Death of F. Scott Fitzgerald
F. Scott Fitzgerald dies of a heart attack at Sheilah Graham's Hollywood, California apartment. He is buried in Rockville, Maryland, where his father was born. -
Death of Zelda
Zelda Fitzgerald dies in a fire at Highland Hospital in Asheville, North Carolina.