Fitzgerald, F. Scott - Introduction

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Chronology

1853: Edward Fitzgerald, father of F. Scott Fitzgerald, is born near Rockville, Maryland.

1858: Anthony D. Sayre, father of Zelda Sayre, is born in Tuskegee, Alabama.

1860: Mary (Mollie) McQuillan, mother of F. Scott Fitzgerald, is born in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Minnie Buckner Machen, mother of Zelda Sayre, is born in Eddyville, Kentucky.

June 1884: Anthony Sayre and Minnie Machen are married near Eddyville, Kentucky.

12 February 1890: Edward Fitzgerald and Mollie McQuillan are married in Washington, D.C.

24 September 1896: Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald is born at 481 Laurel Avenue, St. Paul.

April 1898: Edward Fitzgerald’s St. Paul furniture factory fails, and he takes a salesman’s job with Procter & Gamble in New York State. He and his family live alternately in Buffalo and Syracuse until July 1908.

24 July 1900: Zelda Sayre is born at South Street, Montgomery, Alabama.

21 July 1901: Annabel Fitzgerald, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s sister, is born.

1907: Sayre family moves to 6 Pleasant Avenue, Montgomery, where Zelda lives until her marriage.

March 1908: Edward Fitzgerald loses his Procter & Gamble job.

July 1908: Fitzgerald family returns to St. Paul.

September 1908: F. Scott Fitzgerald becomes student at St. Paul Academy.

1909: Judge Anthony Sayre is appointed associate justice of the Alabama Supreme Court.

October 1909: “The Mystery of the Raymond Mortgage,” a short story that is Fitzgerald’s first appearance in print, is published in The St. Paul Academy Now and Then.

August 1911: Fitzgerald’s first play, The Girl from Lazy J, is produced by the Elizabethan Dramatic Club in St. Paul.

September 1911: Fitzgerald becomes student at Newman School, Hackensack, New Jersey.

August 1912: Fitzgerald’s second play, The Captured Shadow, is produced by the Elizabethan Dramatic Club in St. Paul.

November 1912: Fitzgerald meets Father Sigourney Fay and Anglo-Irish writer Shane Leslie.

August 1913: Fitzgerald’s third play, Coward, is produced by the Elizabethan Dramatic Club in St. Paul.

September 1913: Fitzgerald enters Princeton University as a member of the Class of 1917; meets Edmund Wilson (Class of 1916), who will become a distinguished literary critic, and John Peale Bishop (Class of 1917), who will become a respected poet.

September 1914: Fitzgerald’s fourth play, Assorted Spirits; is produced by the Elizabethan Dramatic Club in St. Paul.

December 1914: Fitzgerald’s first Princeton Triangle Club show, Fie! Fie! Fi-Fi!, for which he wrote book and lyrics, is produced.

4 January 1915: In St. Paul, Fitzgerald meets Ginevra King, a Lake Forest, Illinois, debutante, with whom he becomes romantically involved.

April 1915: Fitzgerald’s play Shadow Laurels is his first publication in The Nassau Literary Magazine.

June 1915: Fitzgerald’s “The Ordeal,” later rewritten as “Benediction,” is his first short story to be published in The Nassau Literary Magazine.

28 November 1915: Fitzgerald drops out of Princeton for remainder of his junior year.

December 1915: The Evil Eye, Fitzgerald’s second Princeton Triangle Club show, for which he wrote lyrics, is produced.

September 1916: Fitzgerald returns to Princeton as member of Class of 1918.

December 1916: Safety First, Fitzgerald’s third Princeton Triangle Club show, for which he wrote lyrics, is produced.

26 October 1917: Fitzgerald receives commission as second lieutenant in U.S. infantry.

20 November 1917: Fitzgerald reports to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas; starts work on “The Romantic Egotist,” a novel.

End of February 1918: On leave from army, Fitzgerald goes to Princeton, where he finishes first draft of “The Romantic Egotist” sends novel to Shane Leslie, who in May submits it to Charles Scribner’s Sons.

15 March 1918: Fitzgerald is stationed at Camp Zachary Taylor in Louisville, Kentucky.

April 1918: Fitzgerald is stationed at Camp Gordon, Georgia.

May 1918: Zelda Sayre graduates from Sidney Lanier High School, Montgomery, Alabama.

June 1918: Fitzgerald arrives at Camp Sheridan near Montgomery.

July 1918: Fitzgerald meets Zelda Sayre at a country-club dance in Montgomery.

August 1918: “The Romantic Egotist” is rejected by Scribners, which also declines revised typescript in October.

26 October 1918: Fitzgerald’s regiment reports to Camp Mills, Long Island.

November 1918: Armistice is signed, and war ends before Fitzgerald’s regiment can be sent overseas.

Late November 1918: Fitzgerald’s unit returns to Camp Sheridan.

February 1919: Fitzgerald is discharged from army. Informally engaged to Zelda Sayre, he goes to New York, works for the Barron Collier advertising agency, and tries unsuccessfully to break into the magazine market.

Spring 1919: Fitzgerald visits Montgomery in April, May, and June in efforts to convince Zelda Sayre to marry him.

June 1919: Zelda Sayre breaks engagement.

July 1919: Fitzgerald quits advertising, goes on binge, and returns to St. Paul where he rewrites “The Romantic Egotist” while living with parents at 599 Summit Avenue.

September 1919: “Babes in the Woods,” Fitzgerald’s first story to be sold to a magazine, is published in The Smart Set.

16 September 1919: Maxwell Perkins of Scribners accepts Fitzgerald’s rewritten novel, now titled This Side of Paradise.

November 1919: Fitzgerald becomes a client of Harold Ober at the Reynolds literary agency. The agency sells “Head and Shoulders” to The Saturday Evening Post for $400; the story, Fitzgerald’s first appearance in the magazine, is published 21 February 1920.

November 1919–February 1920: “The Debutante” (November 1919), “Porcelain and Pink” (January 1920), “Benediction” (February 1920), and “Dalyrimple Goes Wrong” (February 1920) are published by The Smart Set.

Mid January 1920: Fitzgerald visits Zelda Sayre in Montgomery; their engagement is resumed.

March–May 1920: The Saturday Evening Post publishes “Myra Meets His Family” (20 March), “The Camel’s Back” (24 April), “Bernice Bobs Her Hair” (1 May), “The Ice Palace” (22 May), and “The Offshore Pirate” (29 May).

26 March 1920: This Side of Paradise is published.

3 April 1920: Fitzgerald and Zelda Sayre marry at the rectory of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York.

May 1920: The Fitzgeralds rent a house at Westport, Connecticut, where Fitzgerald works on The Beautiful and Damned.

July 1920: “May Day,” Fitzgerald’s naturalistic novelette, is published in The Smart Set.

10 September 1920: Flappers and Philosophers, Fitzgerald’s first collection of short stories, is published.

October 1920: The Fitzgeralds rent an apartment on Fifty-ninth Street in New York City.

3 May 1921: First trip to Europe: the Fitzgeralds visit England, France, and Italy. They return to America in late July and move to St. Paul.

September 1921–March 1922: Metropolitan Magazine serializes The Beautiful and Damned.

26 October 1921: The Fitzgeralds’ daughter, Scottie, is born.

4 March 1922: The Beautiful and Damned is published in book form.

2 April 1922: “Friend Husband’s Latest,” a tongue-in-cheek review of The Beautiful and Damned that is Zelda Fitzgerald’s first commercial publication, appears in The New York Tribune.

June 1922: Fitzgerald’s satirical novelette “The Diamond as Big as the Ritz” is published in The Smart Set.

22 September 1922: Tales of the Jazz Age, Fitzgerald’s second collection of short stories, is published.

Mid October 1922: The Fitzgeralds rent a house at Great Neck, Long Island, and begin their friendship with Ring Lardner.

December 1922: “Winter Dreams,” one of the Gatsby cluster stories, is published in Metropolitan Magazine.

27 April 1923: The Vegetable, Fitzgerald’s satirical play, is published.

19 November 1923: The Vegetable fails at tryout in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

5 April 1924: Fitzgerald’s humorous essay “How to Live on $36,000 a Year” is published in The Saturday Evening Post.

May 1924: Second trip to Europe: the Fitzgeralds visit Paris, then leave for the Riviera.

June 1924: The Fitzgeralds take up residence at Villa Marie, Valescure; “Absolution,” a Gatsby cluster story, is published in The American Mercury.

Summer 1924: The Fitzgeralds meet American expatriates Gerald and Sara Murphy at Cap d’Antibes.

July 1924: Zelda Fitzgerald becomes involved with French naval aviator Edouard Jozan. “‘The Sensible Thing,’” another Gatsby cluster story, is published in Liberty.

Summer-Fall 1924: Fitzgerald completes and revises first draft of The Great Gatsby.

ca. 10 October 1924: Fitzgerald writes to Perkins about a promising young American writer, “Ernest Hemmingway,” whose work has been published in Paris.

Late October 1924: The Fitzgeralds live in Rome, where Fitzgerald revises The Great Gatsby galleys.

February 1925: The Fitzgeralds stay in Capri.

10 April 1925: The Great Gatsby is published.

Late April 1925: The Fitzgeralds return to Paris.

May 1925: Fitzgerald meets Ernest Hemingway at the Dingo bar, Montparnasse.

Summer 1925: Fitzgerald starts planning the Francis Melarky version of the novel that will evolve into Tender Is the Night.

August 1925: The Fitzgeralds spend a month at Cap d’Antibes, then go back to Paris.

January–February 1926: The novelette “The Rich Boy,” a post-Gatsby cluster story, is published in two issues of The Red Book Magazine.

2 February 1926: Owen Davis’s play version of The Great Gatsby opens on Broadway; it has a successful run of 113 performances and is the basis for the 1926 silent movie.

26 February 1926: All the Sad Young Men, Fitzgerald’s third collection of short stories, is published.

Early March 1926: The Fitzgeralds rent a villa at Juan-les-Pins on the Riviera.

May 1926: “How to Waste Material: A Note on My Generation,” an essay-review of Hemingway’s In Our Time (1925), is published in The Bookman.

December 1926: The Fitzgeralds return to America.

January–February 1927: The Fitzgeralds spend two months in Hollywood where Fitzgerald works on “Lipstick” (unproduced) for United Artists; they meet actress Lois Moran.

March 1927: The Fitzgeralds move to Wilmington, Delaware, where they rent “Ellerslie.” Zelda Fitzgerald starts ballet lessons.

April 1928: Third trip to Europe: the Fitzgeralds spend the summer and early fall in Paris.

28 April 1928: “The Scandal Detectives,” the first of the eight-story Basil Duke Lee series, is published in The Saturday Evening Post.

Summer 1928: Zelda Fitzgerald intensifies ballet training as she works with Paris ballet teacher Lubov Egorova.

7 October 1928: The Fitzgeralds return to America and Ellerslie.

March 1929: Fourth trip to Europe: the Fitzgeralds live in Paris until June, spend the summer in Cannes, and return to Paris in October.

2 March 1929: “The Last of the Belles” is published in The Saturday Evening Post.

July 1929: Zelda Fitzgerald’s “The Original Follies Girl” is published under byline “Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald” in College Humor; it is the first in a series of stories she writes for the magazine.

5 April 1930: “First Blood,” the first of Fitzgerald’s five-story Josephine Perry series, is published in The Saturday Evening Post.

23 April–11 May 1930: Suffering her first emotional breakdown, Zelda is hospitalized at Malmaison Clinic outside Paris; she discharges herself.

22 May 1930: Zelda Fitzgerald is hospitalized at Val-Mont Clinic in Glion, Switzerland.

5 June 1930: Zelda Fitzgerald becomes a patient at Prangins Clinic at Nyon, Switzerland.

Summer and Fall 1930: Fitzgerald commutes between Paris and Switzerland; in the fall he moves to Lausanne.

11 October 1930: “One Trip Abroad,” the story of an American couple who deteriorate in Europe, is published in The Saturday Evening Post.

26 January 1931: Edward Fitzgerald dies. Fitzgerald travels alone to America for his father’s interment.

February 1931: Fitzgerald returns to Europe and commutes between Paris and Switzerland.

21 February 1931: “Babylon Revisited,” one of Fitzgerald’s greatest stories, is published in The Saturday Evening Post.

15 August 1931: “Emotional Bankruptcy,” an important Josephine Perry story, is published in The Saturday Evening Post.

15 September 1931: Zelda Fitzgerald is released from Prangins. Shortly thereafter the Fitzgeralds return permanently to America and rent a house in Montgomery.

November 1931: Fitzgerald’s retrospective essay “Echoes of the Jazz Age” is published in Scribner’s Magazine.

November–December 1931: Second Hollywood trip: Fitzgerald travels alone to Hollywood to work on Red-Headed Woman for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. His script is not used.

Early 1932: Fitzgerald plans the Dick Diver version of Tender Is the Night.

January 1932: The Fitzgeralds travel to St. Petersburg, Florida, where Zelda Fitzgerald suffers a second emotional collapse.

12 February 1932: Zelda Fitzgerald becomes a patient at Phipps Psychiatric Clinic, Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore.

March 1932: While at the Phipps Clinic, Zelda Fitzgerald completes the first draft of her novel, Save Me the Waltz.

20 May 1932: Fitzgerald rents “La Paix” at Towson, Maryland, outside Baltimore, where he writes most of Tender Is the Night.

26 June 1932: Zelda Fitzgerald is discharged from Phipps and moves to “La Paix,” where she lives with her family.

October 1932: “Crazy Sunday,” a story about Hollywood, is published in The American Mercury.

7 October 1932: Save Me the Waltz is published.

26 June–1 July 1933: Scandalabra, Zelda Fitzgerald’s play, is produced by Vagabond Junior Players in Baltimore.

11 October 1933: “Ring,” Fitzgerald’s memorial tribute to his friend Ring Lardner, is published in The New Republic.

December 1933: Fitzgerald rents a house in Baltimore.

January–April 1934: Tender Is the Night is serialized in four issues of Scribner’s Magazine.

12 February 1934: Zelda Fitzgerald suffers her third breakdown and returns to the Phipps Clinic where she remains until she is transferred to Craig House, Beacon, New York, in March 1934.

29 March–30 April 1934: Zelda Fitzgerald’s art is exhibited in New York at Cary Ross’s gallery and at Algonquin Hotel.

12 April 1934: Tender Is the Night is published.

19 May 1934: Zelda Fitzgerald is transferred to Sheppard-Pratt Hospital in Towson, Maryland.

20 March 1935: Taps at Reveille, Fitzgerald’s fourth and final story collection, is published.

Summer 1935: Fitzgerald lives at the Grove Park Inn, Asheville, North Carolina.

September 1935: Fitzgerald rents an apartment in Baltimore.

November–December 1935: Fitzgerald lives in Hendersonville, North Carolina, where he begins writing the essays later collected in The Crack-Up (1945); he returns to Baltimore at the end of December.

February–April 1936: The Crack-Up essays—“The Crack-Up” (February), “Pasting It Together” (March), and “Handle with Care” (April)—are published in Esquire.

8 April 1936: Zelda Fitzgerald is transferred to Highland Hospital in Asheville, North Carolina.

July 1936: Fitzgerald stays at the Grove Park Inn in Asheville.

August 1936: Hemingway’s “The Snows of Kilimanjaro”—with its reference to “poor Scott Fitzgerald”—is published in Esquire, which includes in the same issue Fitzgerald’s “Afternoon of an Author.”

September 1936: Mollie McQuillan Fitzgerald dies in Washington, D.C. Scottie Fitzgerald enrolls at the Ethel Walker School in Connecticut.

January 1937: Fitzgerald moves to Tryon, North Carolina.

6 March 1937: “Trouble,”’ Fitzgerald’s last story in The Saturday Evening Post, is published.

July 1937: Third Hollywood trip: Fitzgerald receives a six-month contract with M-G-M at $1,000 a week; he lives at the Garden of Allah, a hotel on Sunset Boulevard.

14 July 1937: Fitzgerald meets Sheilah Graham, with whom he becomes romantically involved.

July 1937–February 1938: Fitzgerald works on Three Comrades script; for this movie he earns his only screen credit, which he shares with E. E. Paramore.

October 1937: “Early Success,” one of Fitzgerald’s retrospective essays, is published in American Cavalcade.

December 1937: Fitzgerald’s M-G-M contract is renewed for one year at $1,250 a week.

February 1938–January 1939: Fitzgerald works on M-G-M scripts for “Infidelity,” Marie Antoinette, The Women, and Madame Curie. He receives no screen credits because his scripts are not used.

April 1938: Fitzgerald moves to a bungalow at Malibu Beach.

September 1938: Scottie Fitzgerald enters Vassar College.

November 1938: Fitzgerald moves to Encino, California.

December 1938: Fitzgerald’s M-G-M contract is not renewed.

January 1939: Fitzgerald works briefly on David O. Selznick’s Gone With the Wind.

10–12 February 1939: Fitzgerald and screenwriter Budd Schulberg go to Dartmouth College to work on a script for Winter Carnival; both are fired for drunkenness.

March 1939–October 1940: Fitzgerald takes freelance jobs at Twentieth Century-Fox, Universal, Goldwyn, and Paramount studios. His scripts are not produced.

Summer 1939: Fitzgerald plans a novel about Hollywood, The Love of the Last Tycoon: A Western.

July 1939: Fitzgerald breaks with his longtime agent, Harold Ober, when Ober refuses to resume his earlier practice of advancing money on unwritten or unsold stories.

September 1939: Fitzgerald unsuccessfully attempts to sell Collier’s serial rights to his novel in progress.

December 1939: “The Lost Decade,” a story about a man who has been drunk for ten years, is published in Esquire.

January 1940: “Pat Hobby’s Christmas Wish,” the first of a seventeen-story series about a Hollywood hack writer, is published in Esquire.

March—August 1940: Fitzgerald works on “Cosmopolitan,” a screenplay based on his 1931 story “Babylon Revisited,” for Lester Cowan. The screenplay is not produced.

Mid April 1940: Zelda Fitzgerald is discharged from Highland Hospital. For the rest of her life, she lives with her mother in Montgomery, though she occasionally returns to Highland Hospital.

May 1940: Fitzgerald moves to an apartment in Hollywood.

21 December 1940: Fitzgerald has a heart attack and dies at Sheilah Graham’s apartment, 1443 North Hayworth Avenue, Hollywood.

27 December 1940: Fitzgerald is buried in Rockville Union Cemetery, Rockville, Maryland.

27 October 1941: The Last Tycoon (with The Great Gatsby and stories), edited by Edmund Wilson, is published by Scribners.

12 August 1945: The Crack-Up, edited by Wilson, is published by New Directions.

September 1945: The Portable F. Scott Fitzgerald, selected by Dorothy Parker and with an introduction by John O’Hara, is published by Viking.

November 1947: Zelda Fitzgerald returns to Highland Hospital.

10 March 1948: Zelda Fitzgerald dies in a fire at Highland Hospital.

17 March 1948: Zelda Fitzgerald is buried with Scott Fitzgerald at Rockville Union Cemetery.

18 November 1950: Scottie Fitzgerald Lanahan donates the Fitzgerald Papers to Princeton University.

7 November 1975: F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald are reinterred in the Fitzgerald family plot at St. Mary’s Church, Rockville, Maryland.

18 June 1986: Scottie Fitzgerald Lanahan Smith dies; she is buried with her parents at St. Mary’s Church, Rockville.

NOTE

Chronology adapted from Matthew J. Bruccoli’s Some Sort of Epic Grandeur, revised edition (New York: Carroll & Graf, 1993) and from Mary Jo Tate’s F. Scott Fitzgerald A to Z (New York: Facts on File, 1998).