F. Scott Fitzgerald always wanted his novel "The Great Gatsby" to become a "consciously artistic achievement."
Today, it is just that.
His American classic is mandatory reading across English classrooms. However, there was a time no one wanted to read about Gatsby and his lost love, Daisy.
With Baz Luhrmann's anticipated film adaptation in theaters this month, we re-read our copy of the book.
Ahead of the 182-pages of the novel is a 22-page introduction from Charles Scribner III.
You've probably passed over it to finish required reading and mull over symbolism regarding the green light at the end of a dock and the watchful eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleberg.
If you go back and take a read before the film comes out May 10, we recommend reading Scribner's forward.
It shares many details about the early drafts of Fitzgerald's novel, the lengthy process and pains with which he went through to produce it — settling on a title was one of the most difficult tasks — and the immediate failure of the book.
Some would say, "Gatsby" was simply ahead of its time.
11. The book was highly influenced by Fitzgerald's failed play "The Vegetable: or from President to Postman."
Fitzgerald spent a year and a half working on the comedy — a satire on the American Dream and spoof of President Harding's administration — which he hoped would make him a famous Broadway playwright.
The young author began work on "Gatsby" after the first draft of "Vegetable" was complete while traveling between Long Island, Great Neck, and New York City for play rehearsal.
"Vegetable" was a disaster opening night in the fall of 1923 in Atlantic City, NJ.
(Source: "The Great Gatsby")
10. "Gatsby" was originally set in the Midwest—not New York—around 1885.
The original concept was to have a "Catholic element" in the novel.
Today, the story takes place in the summer of 1922 — during the Jazz Age — in both Long Island and New York City.
(Source: "The Great Gatsby")
9. There's a short story dedicated to Gatsby's childhood.
During Fitzgerald's early manuscript of "Gatsby," he wrote about a Catholic boy growing up in the Midwest.
According to Fitzgerald, this was to describe Gatsby's childhood in a prologue; however, it was cut from the book.
Instead, the bit was published nearly a year before "The Great Gatsby" in June 1925 in the short story, "Absolution."
(Source: "The Great Gatsby")
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