The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby is a 1925 novel by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. Set in the Jazz Age on Long
Island, near New York City, the novel depicts first-person narrator Nick Carraway's interactions
with mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby and Gatsby's obsession to reunite with his former lover,
Daisy Buchanan.
The novel was inspired by a youthful romance Fitzgerald had with socialite Ginevra King, and the
riotous parties he attended on Long Island's North Shore in 1922. Following a move to the French
Riviera, Fitzgerald completed a rough draft of the novel in 1924. He submitted it to editor Maxwell
Perkins, who persuaded Fitzgerald to revise the work over the following winter. After making
revisions, Fitzgerald was satisfied with the text, but remained ambivalent about the book's title
and considered several alternatives. Painter Francis Cugat's cover art greatly impressed Fitzgerald,
and he incorporated aspects of it into the novel.
After its publication by Scribner's in April 1925, The Great Gatsby received generally favorable
reviews, though some literary critics believed it did not equal Fitzgerald's previous efforts.
Compared to his earlier novels, Gatsby was a commercial disappointment, selling fewer than 20,000
copies by October, and Fitzgerald's hopes of a monetary windfall from the novel were unrealized.
When the author died in 1940, he believed himself to be a failure and his work forgotten.
During World War II, the novel experienced an abrupt surge in popularity when the Council on Books
in Wartime distributed free copies to American soldiers serving overseas. This new-found popularity
launched a critical and scholarly re-examination, and the work soon became a core part of most
American high school curricula and a part of American popular culture. Numerous stage and film
adaptations followed in the subsequent decades.
Gatsby continues to attract popular and scholarly attention. Contemporary scholars emphasize the
novel's treatment of social class, inherited versus self-made wealth, race, and environmentalism,
and its cynical attitude towards the American dream. One persistent item of criticism is an
allegation of antisemitic stereotyping. The Great Gatsby is widely considered to be a literary
masterwork and a contender for the title of the Great American Novel.