The Beautiful and Damned — Francis Scott Fitzgerald

The Beautiful and Damned is a 1922 novel by American writer F Scott Fitzgerald his second that portrays New York café society and the American Eastern elite during the Jazz Age As in his other novels Fitzgerald s characters in this novel are complex materialistic and experience significant disruptions in respect to classism marriage and intimacy The novel purportedly was based on the early years of Fitzgerald s marriage to his wife Zelda Fitzgerald and many critics typically consider the work to be among Fitzgerald s weaker novels During the final decade of his life Fitzgerald remarked upon the novel s lack of quality in a letter to his wife I wish the Beautiful and Damned had been a maturely written book because it was all true We ruined ourselves I have never honestly thought that we ruined each other