The Great Gatsby
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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 front dust jacket art of the first edition, known as Celestial Eyes
George Wilson and his wife Myrtle live in the "valley of ashes", a refuse dump (shown in the above photograph) historically located in New York City during the 1920s. Today, the area is Flushing Meadows–Corona Park.
The confrontation between Gatsby and Tom occurs in the twenty-story Plaza Hotel, a château-like edifice with an architectural style inspired by the French Renaissance.
Edith Cummings, a premier amateur golfer, inspired the character of Jordan Baker. A friend of Ginevra King, she was one of Chicago's famous debutantes in the Jazz Age.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
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Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. He is best known for his novels depicting the flamboyance and excess of the Jazz Age—a term he popularized in his short story collection Tales of the Jazz Age. During his lifetime, he published four novels, four story collections, and 164 short stories. Although he achieved temporary popular success and fortune in the 1920s, Fitzgerald received critical acclaim only after his death and is now widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century.
Fitzgerald in 1929
Portrait of Scott and Zelda by Alfred Cheney Johnston, 1923
Passport photos of the Fitzgeralds, 1923
Fitzgerald's 1923 play, The Vegetable, was an unmitigated disaster and hurt his finances.