Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940) was an American author of novels and short stories, whose works are the paradigm writings of the Jazz Age, a term he coined himself. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. Fitzgerald is considered a member of the "Lost Generation" of the 1920s. He finished four novels: This Side of Paradise, The Beautiful and Damned, Tender is the Night, and his most famous, 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. Novels such as The Great Gatsby and Tender is the Night were made into films, and in 1958 his life from 1937–1940 was dramatized in Beloved Infidel. Novels such as The Great Gatsby and Tender is the Night were made into films, and in 1958 his life from 1937–1940 was dramatized in Beloved Infidel.
Tender Is the Night is celebrated on the card displayed, which was sent to me by Viv from Holland. Tender Is the Night. It was Fitzgerald’s fourth and final completed novel, and was first published in Scribner's Magazine between January-April, 1934 in four issues. John Keats takes the title from the poem “Ode to a Nightingale”.
In 1932, Fitzgerald's wife Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald was hospitalized for schizophrenia in Baltimore, Maryland. The author rented the "la Paix" estate in the suburb of Towson to work on this book, the story of the rise and fall of Dick Diver, a promising young psychoanalyst and his wife, Nicole, who is also one of his patients. It was Fitzgerald's first novel in nine years, and the last that he would complete. While working on the book he several times ran out of cash and had to borrow from his editor and agent, and write short stories for commercial magazines. The early 1930s, when Fitzgerald was conceiving and working on the book, were certainly the darkest years of his life, and accordingly, the novel has its bleak elements.
Two versions of this novel are in print. The first version, published in 1934, uses flashbacks while the second revised version, prepared by Fitzgerald's friend and noted critic Malcolm Cowley on the basis of notes for a revision left by Fitzgerald, is ordered chronologically; this version was first published posthumously in 1951. Critics have suggested that Cowley's revision was undertaken due to negative reviews of the temporal structure of the book on its first release. In 1998, the Modern Library ranked Tender Is the Night 28th on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.
