Author Information- Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald

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Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born in St. Paul Minnesota on September 24, 1896. His name is inspired by his second cousin removed several times from his fathers side. Also known as the one and only Francis Scott Key that wrote "The Star-spangled Banner". As a young child he was a very respectable young man and the pride of his family. Fitzgerald attended St. Paul Academy however when he turned 15 years old his parents transferred him from St. Paul's and enrolled him into a Catholic school called The Newman School. It was there where he met the very person the saw his talent as a gifted writer and encouraged Francis to keep writing. After graduating from Newman School in the year 1913 he went on to Princeton University to perfect his writing skills. He wrote many different types of articles for Princeton's vast amount of writing clubs and activities. Although in 1917 he was placed on acedemic probation and soon after dropped out of school in order to enroll in the Army. Fitzgerald was so scared that he would die while going into World War I that he wrote a book named The Romantic Egotist because he felt as if his literary skills had not been put to proper use. It was rejected by the publishers but they soon after encouraged him to write something else and or perfect his rejected book. Francis was a second lieutentant assigned to a camp out of Montgomery, Alabama. It was there that he fell in love with a young woman named Zelda Sayre, the daughter of a local Judge. After the war ended in 1919, Fitzgerald moved back to New York City in order to rewrite his novel and convince Zelda to marry him. And about one week after his books publication he married Zelda Sayre and they had one daughter named Frances Scott Fitzgerald who was born in 1921. With his newly found literary popularity, Francis began to 'soak up the attention' and began drinking excessive amounts of alcohol and in the process earned the nickname of a 'playboy' which effected his title as a writer. In 1924 Fitzgerald moved to France as an attempt for a newly found spark of writing creativity. It was in France that he wrote his said to be greatest novel, The Great Gatsby. His book was said to define the Jazz age. The Great Gatsby was published in 1925 but sadly he wasn't fully recognized for it until after his death on December 21, 1940 from a heart attack in Hollywood while attempting to revive his career by writing Hollywood scripts.

By: Jessica Hernandez, Zandy Chappell, Courtney Gibson, and Brendan White




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Information sources:

http://www.sc.edu/fitzgerald/biography.html

http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._Scott_Fitzgerald

http://http://www.biography.com/people/f-scott-fitzgerald-9296261

http://kirjasto.sci.fi/fsfitzg.htm