[originaltext] Early in 1920, the American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald was po

Early in 1920, the American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald was poor and unknown. He was 24 years old. The girl he wanted to marry had rejected him. Her family said he could not support her. Later that same year, Fitzgerald’s first novel, This Side of Paradise, was accepted for publication. He quickly became rich and famous. Money differences between one group of Americans and another had become sharper at the beginning of the 20th century. By the 1920s, many people believed that gaining the material things one desired could bring happiness. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote about the lives of people who lived as if that were true. Fitzgerald was able to experience the wild living of the period yet wrote about its effect on people as though he were just an observer. That is a major reason his writings still are popular. Scott and his wife Zelda lived in New York City. He drank too much. She spent too much money. He promised himself to live a less costly life. Always, however, he spent more than he earned from writing. In addition to the individual stories, two collections of his stories, Flappers and Philosophers, and Tales of the Jazz Age, appeared in 1920 and 1922. A second novel, The Beautiful and Damned, also was published in 1922. However, Fitzgerald was unhappy with the money his books earned. He and his wife moved to France with their baby daughter. But they failed to cut their living costs. So Fitzgerald continued to be affected by the problems that would finally kill him- the drinking and the debts. Yet by 1925 his best novel, The Great Gatsby, was published.
23. Why did Scott Fitzgerald fail to marry the girl he loved?
24. What did Fitzgerald write about in the 1920s?
25. What happened to Fitzgerald after moving to France?