Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was an American author of novels and short stories. His works are evocative of the Jazz Age, a term he coined himself. He is widely regarded as one of the twentieth century's greatest writers and is considered a member of the "Lost Generation" of the Twenties. During his lifetime, he published four novels: This Side of Paradise, The Beautiful and Damned, Tender Is the Night, and his most famous, the celebrated classic, The Great Gatsby. A fifth, unfinished novel, The Love of the Last Tycoon was published posthumously. Fitzgerald also wrote many short stories that treat themes of youth and promise along with despair and age.

Born into a middle-class family in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Fitzgerald was raised primarily in New York state. He attended Princeton University, where he befriended future literary critic Edmund Wilson. Due to a failed romantic relationship with Chicago socialite Ginevra King, he dropped out in 1917 to join the United States Army during World War I. While stationed in Alabama, he met Zelda Sayre, who would become his wife. Although she initially rejected his marriage proposal due to his lack of financial prospects, she agreed to marry him after the publication of This Side of Paradise.

His second novel, The Beautiful and Damned, propelled him further into the cultural elite. To maintain his affluent lifestyle, he wrote numerous stories for popular magazines. During this period, Fitzgerald frequented Europe and befriended modernist writers and artists, including Ernest Hemingway. The Great Gatsby received generally favorable reviews but was a commercial failure at first, selling fewer than 23,000 copies in its first year. It is now hailed by some literary critics as the "Great American Novel".

Following the deterioration of his wife's mental health, Fitzgerald completed his final novel, Tender Is the Night. Struggling financially during the Great Depression, he moved to Hollywood, where he embarked upon a career as a screenwriter. After a long struggle with alcoholism, he died of a heart attack at 44. His friend Edmund Wilson edited and published his unfinished novel, The Last Tycoon, after his death.

Wilson described Fitzgerald's style as "romantic, but also cynical; he is bitter as well as ecstatic; astringent as well as lyrical. He casts himself in the role of playboy, yet at the playboy he incessantly mocks."