The Previously Unpublished Long Version, Including the Original Short Story
Offers a portrait of the author's dying father, as well as a mediation on American history and ambitions on the verge of America's entry into a broadening global conflict.
This short novel distilled the essence of glamour and illusion of a generation during the early part of this century. Everyone took advantage of Jay Gatsby's hospitality, and few people could recognize their host. He seemed to be a person without background, without history, without a home.
Day and Night Jay Gatsby's mansion on West Egg buzzes with bright young things drinking, dancing and debating his mysterious character. For Gatsby - young, handsome, fabulously rich - always seems alone in the crowd, watching and waiting, although no one knows what for. Beneath the shimmering surface of his life he is hiding a secret longing that can never be fulfilled. In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald brilliantly captures both the disillusion of post-war America and the moral failure of a society obsessed with wealth and status. But he does more than render the essence of a particular time and place, for in chronicling Gatsby's tragic pursuit of his dream, Fitzgerald re-creates the universal conflict between illusion and reality. (back cover)