Ask the Chatbot Games & Quizzes History & Society Science & Tech Biographies Animals & Nature Geography & Travel Arts & Culture ProCon Money Videos
Lost Generation
References & Edit History Quick Facts & Related Topics
Images & Videos
Passport detail showing a sepia-toned portrait of Ernest Hemingway as a young man in a suit and tie, with official stamps and the number 359666 below the photo. Gertrude Stein Stein and Toklas Hemingway in 1918 Ernest Hemingway F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda Fitzgerald pose together in 1921; Zelda wears a fur coat and hat, while F. Scott wears a dark suit with a white collar. Sylvia Beach stands in the doorway of Shakespeare and Company bookshop in Paris, holding a book, with the shop's name visible above the entrance. Hart Crane, the American poet, seated and wearing a suit with a dark tie, looking slightly to the side in a black and white portrait. H.D. John Dos Passos in a suit and glasses, holding a cigar and a match near his mouth, with a bookshelf partially visible on the left.
Related Questions
Feedback
Corrections? Updates? Omissions? Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login).
Thank you for your feedback

Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article.

External Websites
Britannica Websites
Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students.
Passport detail showing a sepia-toned portrait of Ernest Hemingway as a young man in a suit and tie, with official stamps and the number 359666 below the photo.
Passport photo of Hemingway Detail of Ernest Hemingway's 1923 passport.

Lost Generation

American literature
Written by
René Ostberg
René Ostberg is an associate editor at Encyclopaedia Britannica. 
René Ostberg
Fact-checked by
Britannica Editors
Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....
Britannica Editors
Last updated
•History

In literature, the Lost Generation is the group of American writers who came of age during World War I (1914–18) and established their literary reputations in the 1920s. They were never a literary school, as in a group of writers who adopted a particular aesthetic or developed a manifesto. Instead, they shared a worldview shaped by the horrors of the “war to end all wars” and a disillusionment with the society that had allowed it....

Discover the world with Britannica

Subscribe to Continue Reading

Free Trial | No Ads | Exclusive Content
Explore Subscriptions
DNA
Right
Mobile