~ 1922 ~
The Beautiful and Damned is a tragic novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, published in 1922, that follows the lives of two young socialites who become "wrecked on the shoals of dissipation" in New York City during the hedonistic Jazz Age. The novel is loosely based on Fitzgerald's early years of marriage to Zelda and draws circumstantially upon events during this time. While Fitzgerald sought to improve upon his writing from his debut novel, This Side of Paradise, and venture into a new genre of fiction, The Beautiful and Damned is often considered one of Fitzgerald's weaker novels by critics.