The Beautiful and the Damned is Fitzgerald’s character study of American Eastern elites and the insecurities underpinning the courtship and marriage of his protagonists Anthony and Gloria. Drawing upon his own trouble marriage to Zelda Sayres, Fitzgerald paints a picture of the realities and hardships of a relationship where the two members tend towards selfishness and alcoholism. Published in 1922, it was Fitzgerald’s second novel and predecessor to The Great Gatsby.