5 Essays to Celebrate F. Scott Fitzgerald's Birthday

A legacy of literature, loss, and getting lit

On September 24, 1896, Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born in St. Paul, Minnesota. When he died on December 21, 1940 in Los Angeles at age 44, he died thinking himself a failure. A few years later, copies of The Great Gatsby (1925) would be shipped overseas to troops who were waiting to be sent back home from World War II and dreamed of coming back home to prove their love for their own dream girl. The novel, mostly forgotten and barely in print when Fitzgerald died, would go on to become synonymous with The Great American Novel.

Litverse has dedicated some thousands of words to analyzing what made Fitzgerald the way he was and why he wrote the way he did. In honor of his birthday, I’ve put together a top five list of Litverse’s Fitzgerald essays to help paint the picture of a man who became a legend too early and died in the middle of writing a cutting satire of Hollywood life that showed how much talent he still had left to give.

Choose your adventure below:

1. At The Movies with F. Scott Fitzgerald: Reflections on Fitzgerald’s half-finished final novel, The Last Tycoon, and how he came to die at a loss for himself in Hollywood.

2. Why Fitzgerald and Hemingway Are Literature’s Greatest Frenemies: The complete story of Fitzgerald and Hemingway’s bromance.

3. 6 Ways to Drink Like Fitzgerald: A step-by-step guide to how Fitzgerald drank like no one else and a brief overview of his relationship with Zelda Fitzgerald.

4. F. Scott Fitzgerald and the Poison of Potential: How Fitzgerald became too famous too fast, and what came after.

5. The Art of Regret: A look at regret and guilt through the eyes of The Great Gatsby, Don Draper, and Proust.