F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896â1940) was born in St. Paul, Minnesota and attended Princeton University. His debut novel, This Side of Paradiseâpublished when he was twenty-three years oldâwas an immediate success, selling out of its first printing in three days. He would go on to write some of the finest short stories and novels of the twentieth century, including The Beautiful and Damned, Tender Is the Night, and The Great Gatsby, and he became an icon of the Jazz Ageâa term he coined.