Biographical Influences in The Great Gatsby "My book is wonderful" Fitzgerald wrote to Edmund Wilson from France in the fall of 1924-"so is the air and the sea." I have got my health back-I no longer cough and itch and roll from one side of the bed to the other all night and have a hollow ache in my stomach after two cups of black coffee. I really worked hard as hell last winter-but it was all trash and it nearly broke my heart as well as my iron constitution." The book Fitzgerald is writing about is The Great Gatsby, and the trash is the eleven stories and articles he wrote during the winter to make a p