[1] Set in New York City, the novel's plot follows a young artist Anthony Patch and his flapper wife Gloria Gilbert who become "wrecked on the shoals of dissipation" while partying to excess at the dawn of the hedonistic Jazz Age.

[2][3] As Fitzgerald's second novel, the work focuses on the swinish behavior and glittering excesses of the American idle rich in the heyday of New York's café society.

[9][10] Having reflected upon earlier criticisms of This Side of Paradise, Fitzgerald sought to improve on the form and construction of his prose in The Beautiful and Damned and to venture into a new genre of fiction altogether.

[15] During the final decade of his life, Fitzgerald remarked on the novel's lack of quality in a letter to his wife: "I wish The Beautiful and Damned had been a maturely written book because it was all true.

For the first three years of their married life together, Anthony and Gloria vow to adhere to "the magnificent attitude of not giving a damn... for what they chose to do and what consequences it brought.

At the end, Anthony Patch—echoing his grandfather—describes his inherited wealth as a consequence of his character rather than mere circumstance: "Only a few months before people had been urging him to give in, to submit to mediocrity...

[29] His new fame enabled him to earn much higher rates for his short stories,[30] and his increased financial prospects persuaded his fiancée Zelda Sayre to marry him as Fitzgerald could now pay for her privileged lifestyle.

[9][10] Living in luxury at the Biltmore Hotel in New York City,[37] the newlywed couple became national celebrities, as much for their wild behavior as for the success of Fitzgerald's novel.

"[44] In Fitzgerald's eyes, the era represented a morally permissive time when Americans became disillusioned with prevailing social norms and obsessed with self-gratification.

[51] On August 12, Fitzgerald described the plot of the novel to Charles Scribner as focusing on the life of an artist who lacks creative inspiration and who, after marrying a beautiful woman, is "wrecked on the shoals of dissipation".

[52] His wife Zelda interrupted Fitzgerald's writing of the novel by insisting they return to the Deep South since "she missed peaches and biscuits for breakfast.

[52] While Fitzgerald worked on his second novel, his wife Zelda became pregnant in February 1921,[53] and the couple began planning a trip overseas to Europe.

[56] Having digested criticisms of his debut novel This Side of Paradise, Fitzgerald sought to improve on the form and construction of his prose and to venture into a new genre of fiction altogether.

[57] Fitzgerald dedicated the novel to the Anglo-Irish writer Shane Leslie, drama critic George Jean Nathan, and his editor Perkins "in appreciation of much literary help and encouragement".

[58] While finalizing the novel, Fitzgerald traveled with his wife to Europe,[53] and his agent Harold Ober sold the serialization rights for The Beautiful and Damned to Metropolitan Magazine for $7,000.

[63] There is a profounder truth in The Beautiful and Damned than the author perhaps intended to convey: the hero and heroine are strange creatures without purpose or method, who give themselves up to wild debaucheries and do not, from beginning to end perform a single serious act; but you somehow get the impression that, in spite of their madness, they are the most rational people in the book....

[67] Critic Fanny Butcher likewise lamented that Fitzgerald had traded the bubbly giddiness of This Side of Paradise for a dourness which plumbed "the bitter dregs of reality.

[69] Whereas This Side of Paradise featured unrefined prose and a chaotic structure, The Beautiful and Damned displayed a superior form and construction as well as an awakened literary consciousness.

[71] Remarking on Fitzgerald's improved prose and structural craftsmanship, critic H. L. Mencken wrote in his The Smart Set review, "There are a hundred signs in it of serious purpose and unquestionable skill.

"[74] In contrast to Butcher's disappointment, critics John V. A. Weaver and H. L. Mencken recognized that the vast improvement in literary form and construction between Fitzgerald's first and second novels augured great prospects for his future.

[15] During the final decade of his life, Fitzgerald concurred about the novel's quality in a letter to his wife Zelda: "I wish The Beautiful and Damned had been a maturely written book because it was all true.

[86] In the same humorous review, Zelda wrote—partly in jest[87][88][89]—that "on one page I recognized a portion of an old diary of mine... and, also, scraps of letters which, though considerably edited, sound to me vaguely familiar.

"[86] As a consequence of Rascoe's publicity stunt, speculation emerged many decades after Zelda's death that she co-authored Scott's novel,[90] but most Fitzgerald scholars concur there is no evidence to support this claim.