Image: Ginevra King

Description: American socialite and heiress Ginevra King pictured on the July 1918 cover of Town & Country magazine. In January 1915, a 16-year-old King met future novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald. Love-struck at first sight, Fitzgerald courted King for several years. He visited her father's estate several times, and Ginevra wrote in her diary that she was "madly in love with him." However, Ginevra's upper-class family openly discouraged Fitzgerald's courtship of their daughter because of his lower-class status, and her father purportedly told him that "poor boys shouldn't think of marrying rich girls". Rejected by Ginevra's family as a suitor because of his lack of financial prospects, a suicidal Fitzgerald enlisted in the United States Army amid World War I. Ginevra King later served as the inspiration for the character of Daisy Buchanan in Fitzgerald's literary masterwork The Great Gatsby. The original caption for this photo in Town & Country reads: MISS GINEVRA KING. Daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Garfield King, of Chicago and Lake Forest. She is a Westover girl and would have been a debutante last winter, but the war took her father abroad and she decided to devote all her time to war work. She is a Junior League player and drives in the motor corps. The Kings will spend two months at Rye Beach.
Title: Ginevra King
Credit: Chicago Magazine Princeton University
Author: Arnold Genthe
Permission: [OK] Public domain (verified) as this photo was officially published in July 1918 by Town & Country magazine and its copyright has expired. To view the original Town & Country magazine cover featuring this photograph, visit this link: Gatsby's Girl: The Real Daisy Buchanan
Usage Terms: Public domain
License: Public domain
Attribution Required?: No