Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born on September 24, 1896 in St. Paul Minnesota. He got his name from a distant cousin who wrote The Star Spangled Banner. He was the son of Edward Fitzgerald, a failed wicker furniture salesman, and Mary "Mollie" McQuillan, an Irish immigrant with a large inheritance. He grew up in both the Catholic and upper middle class environments. He started to write at an early age. He had his detective stories published in his high school newspaper. This encouraged him to write more enthusiastically. He attended Princeton University and while he was there he befriended Edmund Wilson, and John Peale Bishop. Both later became lifelong influences in his works. He dropped out of Princeton because of academic troubles later on, to join the United States Army and pursue his writings further. At that time the United States was entering World War I. He was stationed at Camp Sheridan, near Montgomery, Alabama, for his basic training. While he was there he met a high-spirited, 18 year old, Southern belle by the name of Zelda Sayre. When he was 21, still in the Army, he submitted his first novel for publication but it was rejected by Charles Scribner's sons with words of encouragement to go along with it. He rewrote it, retitled it The Romantic Egoist and resubmitted it. Again it came back rejected. He was fed up with this rejection so he turned to advertising as a steady income. What he was earning was not enough to please Zelda or convince her to marry him, so she broke the engagement in 1919. He resubmitted his navel after rewriting and retitling it. The third time was a charm for Fitzgerald because the Scribner sons accepted This Side Of Paradise. Publication began a year after the acceptance. Now that Fitzgerald was rich, Zelda wanted to marry him. They were wed a week after publication began on the novel. The novel captured a mood of spiritual desolation in the aftermath ...