Considered one of the finest American writers of the twentieth century, F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) was the author of various novels and short stories chronicling life in the US during the Roaring Twenties.

The heir to his grandfather's considerable fortune, Anthony Patch is led astray from the path to gainful employment by the temptations of the 1920s Jazz Age. His descent into dissolution and profligacy is accelerated by his marriage to the attractive but turbulent Gloria, and the couple soon discover the dangerous flip side of a life of glamour and debauchery. Containing obvious parallels with F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald's own lives, The Beautiful and Damned is a tragic examination of the pitfalls of greed and materialism and the transience of youth and beauty.

He was better than he knew, for in fact and in the literary sense he invented a generation.