John Steinbeck in 1939 Born

Television series[edit]

• 
  Nigel Davenport in the BBC Two series The Edwardians, in the episode "Conan Doyle" (1972)^[121]
  
• 
  Michael Ensign in the Voyagers! episode "Jack's Back" (1983)
  
• 
  Robin Laing and Charles Edwards in Murder Rooms: Mysteries of the Real Sherlock Holmes (2000–2001)
  
• 
  Geraint Wyn Davies in The Murdoch Mysteries, 3 episodes (2008–2013)
  
• 
  Alfred Molina in the Drunk History (American series) episode "Detroit" (2013)
  
• 
  David Calder in the miniseries Houdini (2014)
  
• 
  Martin Clunes in the miniseries Arthur & George (2015)
  
• 
  Bruce Mackinnon and Bradley Walsh in Drunk History (British series), in series 2, episodes 5 and 8 respectively (2016)^[122][123]
  
• 
  Michael Pitthan in the German TV series Charité episode "Götterdämmerung" (2017).
  
• 
  Stephen Mangan in Houdini & Doyle (2016)
  
• 
  Bill Paterson in the Urban Myths episode "Agatha Christie"
  

Television films[edit]

• 
  Peter Cushing in The Great Houdini (1976)
  
• 
  David Warner in Houdini (1998)
  
• 
  Michael McElhatton in Agatha and the Truth of Murder (2018)
  

Films[edit]

• 
  Paul Bildt in The Man Who Was Sherlock Holmes (1937)
  
• 
  Peter O'Toole in FairyTale: A True Story (1997)
  
• 
  Edward Hardwicke in Photographing Fairies (1997)
  
• 
  Tom Fisher in Shanghai Knights (2003)
  
• 
  Ian Hart in Finding Neverland (2004)
  

Other media[edit]

• 
  Carleton Hobbs in the BBC radio drama Conan Doyle Investigates (1972)^[124]
  
• 
  Iain Cuthbertson in the BBC radio drama Conan Doyle and The Edalji Case (1987)^[125]
  
• 
  Peter Jeffrey in the BBC radio drama Conan Doyle's Strangest Case (1995)^[126]
  
• 
  Adrian Lukis in the stage adaptation of the novel Arthur & George (2010)^[127]
  
• 
  Steven Miller in the Jago & Litefoot audio drama "The Monstrous Menagerie" (2014)^[128]
  
• 
  Eamon Stocks in the video game Assassin's Creed Syndicate (2015)^[129]
  

In Fiction[edit]

Arthur Conan Doyle is the ostensible narrator of Ian Madden's short story Cracks in an Edifice of Sheer Reason.^[130]

• 
  Physician writer
  
• 
  William Gillette, a personal friend who performed the most famous stage version of Sherlock Holmes
  
• 
  List of notable Freemasons
  

F. Scott Fitzgerald

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"Scott Fitzgerald" and "Francis Fitzgerald" redirect here. For other people with these names, see Scott Fitzgerald (disambiguation) and Francis Fitzgerald (disambiguation). For F. Scott Fitzgerald's daughter, see Frances Scott Fitzgerald.

F. Scott Fitzgerald
Fitzgerald in 1921
Born	Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald September 24, 1896 Saint Paul, Minnesota, U.S.
Died	December 21, 1940 (aged 44) Hollywood, California, U.S.
Resting place	Saint Mary's Cemetery Rockville, Maryland, U.S.
Years active	1920–1940
Spouse	Zelda Sayre   ​ (m. 1920)​
Children	Frances Scott Fitzgerald
Signature

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940) was an American novelist, essayist, screenwriter, and Short story writer. He was best known for his novels depicting the flamboyance and excess of the Jazz Age—a term which he popularized. During his lifetime, he published four novels, four collections of short stories, and 164 short stories. Although he temporarily achieved popular success and fortune in the 1920s, Fitzgerald only received wide critical and popular acclaim after his death. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century.

Fitzgerald was born into an upper-middle-class family in St. Paul, Minnesota, but was primarily raised in New York. He attended Princeton University, but due to a failed relationship and a preoccupation with writing, he dropped out in 1917 to join the Army. While stationed in Alabama, he fell in love with rich socialite Zelda Sayre. Although she initially rejected him due to his financial situation, Zelda agreed to marry Fitzgerald after he had published the commercially successful This Side of Paradise (1920).

In the 1920s, Fitzgerald frequented Europe, where he was influenced by the modernist writers and artists of the "Lost Generation" expatriate community, particularly Ernest Hemingway. His second novel, The Beautiful and Damned (1922), propelled him into the New York City elite. To maintain his lifestyle during this time, he also wrote several stories for magazines. His third novel, The Great Gatsby (1925), was inspired by his rise to fame and relationship with Zelda. Although it received mixed reviews, The Great Gatsby is now widely praised, with some even labeling it the "Great American Novel". While Zelda was placed at a mental institute for her schizophrenia, Fitzgerald completed his final novel, Tender Is the Night (1934).

Faced with financial difficulties due to the declining popularity of his works, Fitzgerald turned to Hollywood, writing and revising screenplays. After a long struggle with alcoholism, he died in 1940, at the age of 44. A fifth, unfinished novel, The Last Tycoon (1941), was completed by Edmund Wilson and published after Fitzgerald's death.

Contents

• 
  1Life
  
  • 
    1.1Early life
    
  • 
    1.2Zelda Fitzgerald
    
  • 
    1.3New York and the Jazz Age
    
  • 
    1.4Europe and the Lost Generation
    
  • 
    1.5Foray into Hollywood and Tender Is the Night
    
  • 
    1.6Decline
    
  • 
    1.7Return to Hollywood
    
  • 
    1.8Death
    
• 
  2Legacy
  
  • 
    2.1Critical reevaluation
    
  • 
    2.2Influence
    
  • 
    2.3Adaptations and portrayals
    
  • 
    2.4Legacy
    
• 
  3Selected list of works
  
• 
  4Notes and references
  
  • 
    4.1Notes
    
  • 
    4.2Citations
    
  • 
    4.3Works cited
    
• 
  5Further reading
  
• 
  6External links
  

Life[edit]

Early life[edit]

Fitzgerald, unbreeched as a child in Minnesota

Born on September 24, 1896, in Saint Paul, Minnesota,^[1] to an upper-middle-class family, Fitzgerald was named after his second cousin thrice removed, Francis Scott Key,^{[2][note 1]} but was always known as Scott Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald was also named after his deceased sister, Louise Scott Fitzgerald,^[4] one of two sisters who died shortly before his birth. "Well, three months before I was born," he wrote as an adult, "my mother lost her other two children ... I think I started then to be a writer."^[5] His father, Edward Fitzgerald, was of Irish and English ancestry, and had moved to St. Paul from Maryland after the American Civil War.^[6][7][8] His mother was Mary "Molly" McQuillan Fitzgerald, the daughter of an Irish immigrant who had made his fortune in the wholesale grocery business.^[6] Edward's first cousin once removed, Mary Surratt, was hanged in 1865 for conspiring to assassinate Abraham Lincoln.^[9][10][11]

The Fitzgeralds' home in Buffalo. The Fitzgerald family never owned a house; they only rented.^[12]

Fitzgerald spent the first decade of his childhood primarily in Buffalo, New York, where his father worked for Procter & Gamble,^[13] with a short interlude in Syracuse, (between January 1901 and September 1903).^[14] Edward Fitzgerald had earlier worked as a wicker furniture salesman; he joined Procter & Gamble when the business failed.^[15][16] His parents, both Catholic, sent him to two Catholic schools on the West Side of Buffalo, first Holy Angels Convent (1903–1904, now disused) and then Nardin Academy (1905–1908). Fitzgerald's formative years in Buffalo revealed him to be a boy of unusual intelligence with a keen early interest in literature.^[17] His mother's inheritance and donations from an aunt allowed the family to live a comfortable lifestyle.^[18] In a rather unconventional style of parenting, Fitzgerald attended Holy Angels with the arrangement that he go for only half a day—and was allowed to choose which half.^[14]

In 1908, his father was fired from Procter & Gamble, and the family returned to Minnesota, where Fitzgerald attended St. Paul Academy in St. Paul from 1908 to 1911.^[13] At the age of 13, Fitzgerald had his first work published, a detective story in the school newspaper.^[19] In 1911, Fitzgerald's parents sent him to the Newman School, a Catholic prep school in Hackensack, New Jersey.^[20] Fitzgerald played on the 1912 Newman football team.^[21] At Newman, he was taught by Father Sigourney Fay, who recognized his literary potential and encouraged him to become a writer.^[16] After graduating from Newman in 1913, Fitzgerald enrolled at Princeton University, where he tried out for the football team and was cut the first day of practice.^[21] At Princeton, he became friends with future critics and writers, including Edmund Wilson and John Peale Bishop.^[22] Fitzgerald wrote for the Princeton Triangle Club, the Nassau Lit,^[23] and the Princeton Tiger. He also was involved in the American Whig-Cliosophic Society, which ran the Nassau Lit.^[24] His absorption in the Triangle—a kind of musical-comedy society—led to his submission of a novel to Charles Scribner's Sons where the editor praised the writing but ultimately rejected the book.^[13] Four of the University's eating clubs sent him bids at midyear, and he chose the University Cottage Club (where Fitzgerald's desk and writing materials are still displayed in its library).^[22]

Fitzgerald in his uniform

While attending Princeton, Fitzgerald met Chicago socialite and debutante Ginevra King.^[25] King and Fitzgerald had a romantic relationship from 1915 to 1917.^[26] Immediately infatuated with her, according to Mizner, Fitzgerald "remained devoted to Ginevra as long as she would allow him to", and wrote to her "daily the incoherent, expressive letters all young lovers write".^[22] She would become his inspiration for the character of Isabelle Borgé, Amory Blaine's first love in This Side of Paradise,^[27] for Daisy in The Great Gatsby, and several other characters in his novels and short stories.^[28] Her father reportedly warned Fitzgerald that "Poor boys shouldn't think of marrying rich girls."^[29] After their relationship ended in 1917, Fitzgerald requested that Ginevra destroy the letters that he had written to her.^[26] However, he never destroyed the letters that King had sent him. After his death in 1940, his daughter "Scottie" sent the letters back to King where she kept them until her death. She never shared the letters with anyone.^[30]

At Princeton, Fitzgerald's writing pursuits came at the expense of his studies, causing him to be placed on academic probation. In 1917, Fitzgerald pivoted, dropping out of Princeton to join the Army. During that winter, he was stationed at Fort Leavenworth, under the command of future United States President and General of the Army Dwight Eisenhower, whom he intensely disliked.^[31] Worried that he could die in the War without ever publishing anything, Fitzgerald hastily wrote The Romantic Egotist in the weeks before reporting for duty—and, although Scribners rejected it, the reviewer praised Fitzgerald's writing and encouraged him to resubmit the novel after further revisions.^[13] Fitzgerald would later regret not serving in combat, as detailed in his short story "I Didn’t Get Over" (1936).^[32][33]