Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was an American writer of novels and short stories, whose works are evocative of the Jazz Age, a term he coined himself. He is widely regarded as one of the twentieth century's great writers. Fitzgerald is considered a member of the "Lost Generation", Americans born in the 1890s who came of age during World War I. He finished four novels, left a fifth unfinished, and wrote dozens of short stories that treat themes of youth and promise , and despair and age .