Tender Is the Night

Tender Is the Night is the fourth and final novel completed by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. Set in the French Riviera during the twilight of the Jazz Age, the 1934 novel chronicles the rise and fall of Dick Diver, a promising young psychiatrist, and his wife, Nicole, who is one of his patients. The story mirrors events in the lives of the author and his wife Zelda Fitzgerald as Dick starts his descent into alcoholism and Nicole struggles with mental illness.

Fitzgerald began the novel in 1925 after the publication of his third novel The Great Gatsby. During the protracted writing process, the mental health of his wife rapidly deteriorated, and she required extended hospitalization due to her suicidal and homicidal tendencies. After her hospitalization in Baltimore, Maryland, the author rented the La Paix estate in the suburb of Towson to be close to his wife, and he continued his work on the manuscript.