Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born on 24 September 1896 in Saint Paul, Minnesota in the Mid-
             West of America. At the time of his birth America was changing into a country of growing cities and technological changes were happening. He was educated at Princeton University but he was a very poor student and never finished his degree.
             At University he was with many young men from wealthy backgrounds. The newly-rich commercial classes of America preferred to send their children to East Coast Universities. Although his family wasn't poor, in the company of such men he felt poor and he was influenced by the rich for the rest of his life. The reason he was such a bad student was because of his interest in literature. He read and wrote very much at the University and had little time left for studying.
             After leaving University he joined the Army but although America had joined the First World War he never fought in Europe. While in the army he met Zelda Sayre and they got engaged. After he left the army he worked as an advertising agent and tried to get his first novel published. The novel was rejected and Zelda broke off their engagement too because she felt she couldn't live with a man with such a small income. So Fitzgerald quit his job and revised his novel. It was published and within a week Zelda and Fitzgerald were married. America was in, what was called, "The Jazz Age" and it was a time of great social change. The moral behaviour of people was changing rapidly. Fitzgerald has come to be seen as a sort of social historian because his first three novels ( including " The Great Gatsby") reflected the new shocking behaviour of young (mostly wealthy) Americans.
             Fitzgerald and Zelda lived most of the 1920's in a high style. They made homes in America and the fashionable places and resorts of Europe. They met fashionable famous people and attended wild parties and glamorous fashionable social e...