The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby is a novel written by F. Scott Fitzgerald and published in 1925. It is widely considered the author’s masterpiece and a central novel of American modernism.

Set on Long Island and in New York City in 1922, the novel follows the mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby and his attempt to recover a past he associates with Daisy Buchanan. His lavish parties mask loneliness and a carefully constructed identity, while the wealth around him exposes the excess and moral carelessness of the Jazz Age.

The book opens with Nick Carraway, a Midwestern native and World War I veteran who moves to New York for work and rents a house on Long Island, next door to Jay Gatsby's grand mansion. Nick, Daisy’s cousin, narrates the story from his own limited and increasingly disillusioned perspective.

The novel deals with themes such as decadence, idealism, and social upheaval, reflecting the tensions within American society of the Roaring Twenties. The book's initial sales were disappointing, and its reviews were mixed. After the author’s death and World War II, however, the novel’s reputation grew substantially.

It became widely taught and has been adapted for stage and screen. In 1998, the Modern Library board ranked it second on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.