Unique Elements Author Biography About The Beautiful and the Damned “She was dazzling-- alight; it was agony to comprehend her beauty in a glance.” The Beautiful and Damned is a novel by American author F. Scott Fitzgerald, published in 1922. His second novel, it is a brilliant and vivid depiction of the behaviour and glittering excesses of the American social elite at the height of New York's café culture. Set in New York City, at the dawn of the hedonistic Jazz Age, the plot follows young artist Anthony Patch and his flapper bride Gloria Gilbert as they become "wrecked on the shoals of dissipation" while partying and living the high life. A finely nuanced, enduring literary classic, and an unmissable read.