ARLINGTON, Va. - s4story -- by Ed Lengel for David Bruce Smith's Grateful American Book Prize

First Publication of The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1925

Generally regarded as the quintessential Jazz Age novel, and one of America's finest works of fiction, The Great Gatsby was published in April 1925 by Charles Scribner's Sons; at twenty-eight, F. Scott Fitzgerald had already produced two major novels: This Side of Paradise (1920), and The Beautiful and Damned (1922).

He was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, raised in New York, graduated from Princeton University, and had a long relationship with the wealthy Chicago socialite, Ginevra King. After that romance washed out, Fitzgerald joined the U.S. Army at the beginning of World War I more out of despair than patriotism. Although he had dreamed of getting killed in combat, Fitzgerald was not deployed overseas; instead, he started writing fiction during his time in training camp.

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The Great Gatsby was based—partially—on his liaison with King, but it was conceived in the midst of his boozy, frenetic life with his wife, Zelda, during Prohibition-era New York City. Eventually, the mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby became one of the best-known fictitious figures in American literature, but success was not immediate; the book got mixed reviews; it didn't garner commercial traction until after Fitzgerald's death. His wild lifestyle contributed to his 1940 passing, and so did his disappointment about what he believed to be a failed literary career. During World War II, however, Gatsby became a huge hit in inexpensive paperback printings; after the war, arbiters and authors reappraised the work, and concluded it was one of the best ever written.

For more information, the Grateful American Book Prize recommends Bob Batchelor's Gatsby: The Cultural History of the Great American Novel (2013).

History Matters is a feature courtesy of the Grateful American Book Prize. For more book recommendations and information about the annual award visit https://gratefulamericanbookprize.org/.