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This week marks the 100th anniversary of the publication of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby.” It was destined to be the definitive literary monument of the Roaring ’20s, a decade of fortunes made and lost on Wall Street.
Fitzgerald distilled real-life experiences into his characters Daisy Buchanan and Nick Carraway, chronicling scenes he’d witnessed while visiting Chicago’s North Shore and his love interest, Lake Forest debutant Ginevra King.
Fitzgerald and King met Jan. 4, 1915, at a sledding party in St. Paul, Minnesota, his hometown. She was 16 and visiting her roommate from the ultra-posh Westover School in Middlebury, Connecticut. He was 18 and a freshman at Princeton University.
From the moment they met, King and Fitzgerald were united in a peculiarly Jazz Age puppy-love affair that would continue for several years before ending abruptly when King announced to him that she would be wed in an arranged marriage to the fabulously wealthy William H. Mitchell, also of Lake Forest.
Fitzgerald wrote the emotional residue of his and King’s affair into “The Great Gatsby.” Read the full story here.
Ginevra King, center, with friends at the country wedding of Adele Blow and Lt. Wayne Chatfield-Taylor in La Salle, Illinois, on Aug. 22, 1917. The couple was married at Blow’s parents estate, Deer Park, which is now Matthiessen State Park. Society members were brought to the wedding on a special train from Chicago. (Chicago Tribune historical photo)Ginevra King of Lake Forest on July 24, 1914., a year before she met F. Scott Fitzgerald. (Chicago Tribune historical photo)American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald, circa 1925. (Hulton Archive/Getty)Architect Howard Van Doren Shaw built this home for Charles Garfield King in 1906 in Lake Forest, called Kingdom Come Farm, where he lived with his family, including his daughter, Ginevra, April 3, 2025. Ginevra King inspired the Daisy Buchanan character in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby.” (Audrey Richardson/Chicago Tribune)Courtney Letts, from left, Mrs. T. Philip Swift, Mrs. Fred C. Letts Jr. and Edith Cummings are golfing in Lake Forest in an undated photo. Letts and Cummings were part of the “Big Four” debutants from Lake Forest along with Ginevra King and Margaret Carry. (Chicago Tribune historical photo)Ginevra Mitchell golfing, circa 1922.(Chicago Tribune historical photo)Edith Cummings, from left, Mrs. Stanley Smith, Mrs. Earl Reynolds, Mrs. William McCormick Blair and Miss Harriet McLaughlin are golfing in an undated photo. Cummings appeared as Jordan Baker in “Gatsby,” (Chicago Tribune historical photo)Ginevra King Mitchell, circa 1929. (Raymor Ltd.)William and Ginevra Mitchell, of Lake Forest, in November 1931 at the Tavern Club. “I wish you knew Bill so that you could know how very lucky I am,” Ginevra King wrote to Fitzgerald when she announced her arranged marriage to Mitchell. (John Steger/Chicago Tribune)Writer F. Scott Fitzgerald with his wife Zelda and their daughter Scottie aboard a ship as they return to America from a two-year European trip in December 1926. (AP photo)Ginevra Mitchell was usually found riding over the rolling countryside of Millburn, circa 1936. (Chicago Tribune historical photo)Ginevra Mitchell picks flowers outside her Lake Forest mansion in an undated photo. (Chicago Tribune historical photo)F. Scott Fitzgerald in an undated photo. Editors note: this historic print shows a hand painted background. (Chicago Tribune archive)Lacy Armour, left, and Ginevra Mitchell with flowers for the Lake Forest Flower Show in 1927. (Chicago Herald and Examiner)The gothic home of William H. Mitchell in Lake Forest on May 23, 1966. (John Bartley/Chicago Tribune)John T. Pirie Jr. during a hunt at Onwentsia in Lake Forest, circa 1932. Pirie married Ginevra King in 1942. (Chicago Tribune historical photo)Ginevra Mitchell is at Arlington Park on a cool day in 1938. (Chicago Tribune historical photo)Ginevra Mitchell, left, and Mrs. Richard Myers of New York, eat lunch at the Pump Room at the Ambassador East Hotel in Chicago in May 1939. Mrs. Myers was in Chicago for John Barrymore’s engagement in “My Dear Children.” Her husband was the producer of the show. (Chicago Tribune historical photo)Ginevra King Mitchell, circa 1941. (Moffett Studio)John T. Pirie Jr. and Ginevra King Pirie with their springer, circa 1952. (Chicago Tribune historical photo)
