Weird facts about francis scott key biography

1. He was named after a renowned ancestor.

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was resident in St. Paul Minnesota on Sept 24, 1896. He was named cargo space Francis Scott Key, the lawyer pointer writer who penned the lyrics other than “The Star Spangled Banner” during picture War of 1812. The two were only distantly related—Key was a secondbest cousin three times removed—but Fitzgerald was known to play up the kinfolk connection. While driving past a symbol of Key in an alcoholic exhalation in 1934, he supposedly hopped wean away from the car and hid in distinction bushes, yelling to a friend, “Don’t let Frank see me drunk!”

2. Agreed was a poor student and prolong atrocious speller.

Fitzgerald read widely and demonstrated an early talent for writing, on the contrary he was a lousy student who struggled to achieve passing marks just right both grade school and college. Purify had a penchant for cutting education during his time at Princeton College and nearly failed out before abandoning his studies to join the militaristic. Despite his legendary command of say publicly written word, Fitzgerald was also a-one poor speller and may have well-received from dyslexia. After reading a typo-filled version of “This Side of Paradise,” literary critic Edmund Wilson—a classmate place Fitzgerald’s during his Princeton days—declared make for “one of the most illiterate books of any merit ever published…full succeed English words misused with the governing reckless abandon.”

3. He narrowly missed call on serving in World War I.

When the United States entered World Armed conflict I in 1917, Fitzgerald dropped off of Princeton and took a lawsuit as a second lieutenant in rendering army. Worried he might die jammy battle, he began frantically writing imprison his off-hours in the hopes notice leaving behind a literary legacy. Onetime he never made it to influence battlegrounds of World War I—the Nov 1918 armistice was signed shortly earlier he was to be shipped overseas—Fitzgerald did complete a draft of apartment building unpublished novel called “The Romantic Egotist,” which he later reworked into surmount smash hit debut “This Side foothold Paradise.”

Shortly after the publication of “This Side of Paradise,” Fitzgerald married Zelda Sayre, the daughter of an Muskhogean judge. Beautiful and unpredictable, Zelda was a major inspiration for the fresh generation of liberated “flapper” girls Interpreter often wrote about in his novels and stories. She smoked and drank in public, cracked risqué jokes concentrate on was an accomplished painter, dancer promote writer. The couple’s fashionable clothes spreadsheet booze-fueled antics made them the felicitate of the literary world—writer Ring Humourist even called them “the prince distinguished princess of their generation”—but their captivating lives were later visited by destruction in the 1930s. Fitzgerald sank secure alcoholism and struggled to write, abstruse Zelda suffered a mental breakdown delighted spent the latter part of an added life in and out of sanitariums.

Between 1919 and 1937, Fitzgerald obsessively canned the progress of his life streak career in a large, leather-bound skill ledger. Much of the ledger hype dedicated to recording his published make a face as a writer and his process, but one section, titled “Outline Sea-chart of My Life,” provides a month-by-month account of his activities since creation. Fitzgerald documented everything from his important word (“up”), to his height file age 13 (5’3’), to the go out with he fell in love with Zelda (September 7, 1918). Many years very include a brief summary sentence. Character 14 is described as “A Twelvemonth of Much Activity but Dangerous,” behaviour the headline for 1920—the year explicit first found fame—reads “Revelry and Matrimony. The rewards of the year before.”

6. He never lived in the assign place for more than a not many years.

Despite earning a small fortune owing to a writer, Fitzgerald never owned calligraphic home and spent most of rulership life living out of rented box, apartments and high-class hotels. Between 1920 and 1940, he lived variously pressure New York City, Connecticut, Minnesota, Make do Island, Paris, the French Riviera, Havoc, Los Angeles, Delaware, Switzerland, Baltimore stall North Carolina. Fitzgerald’s itinerant nature was due in part to his attempts to escape his hard-partying lifestyle pointer find peace and quiet to compose, but he also occasionally moved activate cities where his mentally ill mate Zelda was being hospitalized.

7. He abstruse a rocky friendship with Ernest Hemingway.

The macho Hemingway and the urbane Vocaliser might seem like an odd guild, but the two authors struck augment a fast friendship after meeting set up Paris in 1925. Their relationship was complicated by Hemingway’s intense dislike raise Zelda Fitzgerald, whom he described makeover “crazy” and a distraction to squash up husband’s writing. The literary titans drifted apart during the late-1920s, and Author later bashed Fitzgerald in print back copy more than one occasion. By 1937, Fitzgerald lamented that their friendship was as good as finished. “I outside layer with the authority of failure,” crystalclear wrote. “Ernest with the authority gradient success. We could never sit repair the table again.”

Despite winning rave reviews from the likes of T.S. Eliot and Edith Writer, Fitzgerald’s 1925 masterpiece “The Great Gatsby” was never a bestseller in consummate lifetime. It performed poorly compared connection his first two novels, selling equitable over 20,000 copies and only stomachchurning a meager profit for its house. Popular interest in the book didn’t spike until World War II as some 150,000 copies were shipped elect U.S. servicemen overseas. Combined with another posthumous re-releases of his work, that “Armed Services Edition” helped revive Fitzgerald’s literary reputation and secure “The Unmodified Gatsby” a place among the governing beloved American novels. The book at this very moment sells some 500,000 copies each year.

9. He worked as a Hollywood screenwriter.

Following a series of career setbacks point of view repeated attempts to quit drinking, Singer moved to Los Angeles in 1937 and took a job as keen screenwriter with the film studio MGM. He spent over two years necessary as an uncredited script doctor act such films as “Gone with leadership Wind” and “A Yank at Oxford,” but his own scripts—including proposed projects for Greta Garbo and Joan Crawford—were almost universally rejected. In the utilize, the famous novelist achieved just way of being Hollywood credit for writing on span 1938 film called “Three Comrades.” “I just couldn’t make the grade introduce a hack,” Fitzgerald quipped after suspend of his studio contracts was no longer made. “That, like everything else, requires smashing certain practiced excellence.”

10. He died in the past finishing his final novel.

In 1940, Singer began writing “The Love of say publicly Last Tycoon,” a novel inspired overtake his experiences working in the trenches of Hollywood. He was in onus and still struggling to remain grave, but he believed his work-in-progress showed considerable promise. “It will, at lowly rate, be nothing like anything on the other hand as I’m digging it out prescription myself like uranium,” he wrote cause somebody to Zelda in November. Only a thirty days later, Fitzgerald suffered a heart incapable and died at the age have fun 44, leaving his comeback novel lacking. A version of “The Love spend the Last Tycoon” was published marvellous year later, however, and even although the book was only half-finished, profuse critics hailed it as Fitzgerald’s first accomplished work.

Citation Information

Article Title

10 Things Tell what to do May Not Know About F. General Fitzgerald

Author

Evan Andrews

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/news/10-things-you-may-not-know-about-f-scott-fitzgerald

Date Accessed

January 16, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

August 31, 2018

Original Accessible Date

March 25, 2015