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Wednesday 22 April 2015

The Great Gatsby

F Scott Fitzgerald began planning The Great Gatsby in 1923, inspired by the parties he had attended while visiting Long Island's north shore. Originally he was going to call it "Incident at West Egg.”

The story takes place in the summer of 1922, during the Jazz Age, in both Long Island and New York City.

During Fitzgerald's early manuscript of "Gatsby," he wrote about a Catholic boy growing up in the Midwest around 1885.

Fitzgerald was hesitant about "The Great Gatsby" as the title. Three weeks before the book was published on April 10, 1925, Fitzgerald asked for the title to be changed to "Under the Red, White, and Blue."  However, it was too late to change, and "The Great Gatsby" remained.

The Great Gatsby was a commercial failure upon its release. The first printing sold slightly more than 20,000 — just enough to repay publisher Scribners. Much of its second print run of just 3,000 copies was unsold 15 years later when Fitzgerald died.

Reviews were poor and some tore "Gatsby" apart. The reviewer for the Brooklyn Eagle claimed she could not find 'one chemical trace of magic, life, irony, romance or mysticism in all of 'The Great Gatsby' and concluded that 'the boy' [Fitzgerald] was 'simply puttering around.'"

Ernest Hemingway hated the now-iconic book cover. The author described it as "the ugliest jacket he'd seen."

Wikipedia.Commons

“Gatsby” gained readers after the Council on Books in Wartime gave away copies to the American military during World War II. By 1959, the book was selling at the rate of 50,000 copes per year.

The Great Gatsby now sells more copies per month in the USA than it did in Fitzgerald's lifetime.

The 2013 film adaptation of The Great Gatsby is a visually stunning and emotionally charged take on the classic novel. Leonardo DiCaprio stars as Jay Gatsby, a mysterious and wealthy man who throws lavish parties in the hope of winning back his lost love, Daisy Buchanan (Carey Mulligan). 

There was also a 1974 movie adaptation of The Great Gatsby starring Robert Redford  as Jay Gatsby and Mia Farrow as Daisy Buchanan. The film was directed by Jack Clayton and written by Francis Ford Coppola. 

The actress Sigourney Weaver was christened Susan but at the age of 14 she renamed herself Sigourney after a character in The Great Gatsby

Source Businessinsider.com

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