The Great Gatsby

"I want to write something new, something extraordinary and beautiful and simple and intricately patterned." -- F. Scott Fitzgerald (1923). "The first step American fiction has taken since Henry James." - T. S. Eliot. "One of the most important works in American literature -- and, to many, the great American novel." -- Time. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald's masterpiece is perhaps "The Great American Novel." It is as Fitzgerald hoped, something new, something extraordinary. It is set in Long Island, during the excitement and enthusiasm of "the Jazz Age," a term coined by Fitzgerald in his earlier collection, Tales of the Jazz Age. Fitzgerald himself was part of this milieu. The handsome millionaire Jay Gatsby seems to have everything, but where did his wealth come from, and what is he still in search of? The Great Gatsby was not a commercial success initially, and it was only after Fitzgerald's early death that it was appreciated. It is now near the top of almost every list of best novels and is on almost every curriculum. Francis Scott Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 - December 21, 1940) was an American novelist, essayist, screenwriter, and short-story writer, although he is best known for his novels depicting the flamboyance and excess of the Jazz Age. His life mirrors that of Jay Gatsby in some ways. Writer Richard Ford calls Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Faulkner "the Three Kings who set the measure for every writer since."