The Great Gatsby

About this Book

The Great Gatsby is a 1925 novel by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. Set in the Jazz Age on Long Island, near New York City, the novel provides a critical social history of America during the Roaring Twenties within its narrative. The story primarily concerns the young and mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby and his quixotic passion and obsession with the beautiful former debutante Daisy Buchanan. Considered to be Fitzgerald's magnum opus, it explores themes of decadence, idealism, resistance to change, social upheaval, and excess. Narrated by Nick Carraway, a Yale graduate and World War I veteran from the Midwest who moves to New York to seek a career in bonds, the story unfolds across the affluent fictional villages of West Egg and East Egg on Long Island during the summer of 1922. Nick soon becomes entangled with Gatsby's lavish lifestyle and his desperate quest to win back the love of Daisy, who is married to the arrogant Tom Buchanan. Behind Gatsby's dazzling wealth lies an elusive past and an unyielding dream of rekindling a lost romance. Today, The Great Gatsby is widely considered to be a literary masterpiece and a contender for the title of the Great American Novel, capturing both the exuberance and the tragic disillusionment of the American Dream.