Today we are commemorating the birthday of American author F. Scott Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald’s works are the quintessential writings of the Jazz Age, a term he coined. Along with Hemingway, 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 published four novels during his lifetime: This Side of Paradise, The Beautiful and Damned, The Great Gatsby (his most famous), and Tender Is the Night. 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 age and despair.
The University of Tulsa’s Department of Special Collections and University Archives holds a wide variety of Fitzgerald materials, including our F. Scott Fitzgerald Ephemera Collection, which contains items such as the Ambassador Theatre program for the 1926 production of an adaptation of The Great Gatsby. The collection also has a certified copy of Fitzgerald’s death certificate and various press cuttings concerning his work.
The staff of the University of Tulsa’s Department of Special Collections and University Archives invites our patrons, faculty, student body and community in general to visit us and take a look at these materials.