The American author Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (1896-1940), a legendary figure of the 1920s, was a scrupulous artist, a graceful stylist, and an exceptional craftsman. His tragic life was an ironic analog to his romantic art.

On Sept. 24, 1896, F. Scott Fitzgerald was born in St. Paul, Minn. His family was Irish Catholic, his mother's side wealthy. The family lived for some years in Buffalo and Syracuse; but in 1908, when Scott's father lost his job, they returned to St. Paul. For the most part, Scott was privately educated; he attended Newman School in Hackensack, N.J., from 1911 to 1913.

Fitzgerald enrolled at Princeton University in 1913 and struck up enduring friendships with Edmund Wilson and John Peale Bishop. Because of ill health and low grades, he left college in 1915. He returned to Princeton in 1916 but left a year later without a degree and joined the Army with a second lieutenant's commission...