The Great Gatsby
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Great Gatsby is a novel by the American author F. Scott
Fitzgerald. First published on April 10, 1925, the story is set in
Long Island and New York City during the summer of 1922.
The novel chronicles an era that Fitzgerald himself dubbed the
"Jazz Age." Following the shock and chaos of World War I, American
society enjoyed unprecedented levels of prosperity during the 1920s
as the economy soared. At the same time, Prohibition, the ban on
the sale and manufacture of alcohol mandated by the Eighteenth
Amendment, made millionaires out of bootleggers and led to an
increase in organized crime. Although Fitzgerald, like Nick
Carraway in his novel, idolized the riches and glamour of the age,
he was uncomfortable with the unrestrained materialism and lack of
morality that went with it.
The Great Gatsby was not popular upon initial printing, selling
fewer than 25,000 copies during the remaining fifteen years of
Fitzgerald's life.
Although it was adapted into both a Broadway play and a Hollywood
film within a year of publication, it was largely forgotten during
the Great Depression and World War II. After it was republished in
1945 and 1953, it quickly found a wide readership and is now often
regarded as the Great American Novel. It is now a standard text in
high school and university courses on American literature in
countries around the world.
