Fitzgerald met Ginevra in St. Paul with Marie Hersey in January of 1915 (Richard Lehan, "Careless People- 68). They met at a dinner dance, which Fitzgerald describes in another story of his, " Babes in the Woods- (Lehan "Careless People- 68). "There is no proof that Ginevra took Fitzgerald as seriously as he took her, and there is evidence that the Kings disapproved of Fitzgerald- (Lehan "Careless People- 68). In 1917 Fitzgerald first suspected that Ginevra was engaged and wrote about his presumption in his ledger (Lehan "Careless People- 70). After that she officially broke off the relationship (Lehan "Careless People- 70).
Fitzgerald came away from Ginevra with a sense of social inadequacy, a deep hurt, and a longing for the girl " beyond attainment- (Lehan "Careless People- 71). Fitzgerald ties Ginevra in with the character of Daisy and many other women in his novels. Kenneth Eble is quoted as saying, "the details of Gatsby's and Daisy's love affair all come from Fitzgerald's own experience delete [] [. . .]- (99). .
Fitzgerald advised his daughter, Scottie, to marry someone who follows a "calculated path stemming from a talent or money- (qtd. in Lehan "Careless People- 71). Fitzgerald felt his lack of money was why Ginevra married someone else (Lehan "Careless People- 71).
"[. . .] Daisy Fay Buchannan was named for Henry James heroine; Daisy Miller- (Malcolm Cowley). Lehan relates Daisy to Ginevra and shows how Fitzgerald uses Ginevra in a variety of his works. .
The story [of Gatsby] was compelling for Fitzgerald because it was one he had lived firsthand when his love affair with Ginevra King broke up. Both Isabelle of "Babes in the Woods- and Helen of "The Debutante- are based on Ginevra King as is Rosalind in This Side of Paradise. Fitzgerald recorded his love affair with Ginevra in his ledger, an informal diary that he kept of the major events in his life [. . .]. So deep was his love for Ginevra King that fifteen years later he was writing about her in his Josephine stories, and twenty years later, in 1937, he described her again in his story "Between Planes.
