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Zelda Fitzgerald

Asheville, Buncombe County, North Carolina

Marker Inscription

Zelda Fitzgerald. Writer, artist, Jazz Age icon; wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald. In 1948, she and 8 other patients died in fire at Highland Hospital, ΒΌ mile S.

Erected by North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources

The Story

Zelda Fitzgerald was a writer, painter, and celebrated icon of the Jazz Age, as well as the wife of novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald. In her later years she was treated at Highland Hospital in Asheville, where in 1948 she and eight other patients died in a fire a quarter mile south of this marker. Her tragic end closed one of the most dazzling and troubled lives of the 1920s.

Why it matters

Zelda embodied the glamour and the darker undercurrents of the Jazz Age, and her creative life is increasingly recognized apart from her famous husband's shadow.

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Related people

  • Β· Zelda Fitzgerald
  • Β· F. Scott Fitzgerald

Themes & tags

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