Fitzgerald, F. Scott | "So we beat on, boats against the current, ..."

Property from the Jean Hart Kislak Collection

F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Great Gatsby. New York: Scribner's, 1925

8vo. Publisher's green cloth. Publisher's cloth, a fine copy in a first issue dust jacket; restoration to folds and extremities of jacket, the spine with relettering to imprint. Half morocco case. 

First edition and a prime candidate for the Great American Novel.

Gatsby is widely regarded as Fitzgerald's masterpiece, though the original sales were very disappointing in comparison to his earlier bestsellers. The work barely paid back his advance from Scribner's.

Fitzgerald himself was clear on his feelings of its merits, "I think my novel is about the best American novel ever written" (Letters p. 166). Certainly few since have disputed Cyril Connolly's estimation of it as "one of the half-dozen best American novels ... it remains a prose poem of delight and sadness which has by now introduced two generations to the romance of America ..." The dust jacket for Gatsby has achieved a near legendary status as well, not only for the image but for the great difficulty in obtaining an unworn or unrestored example. Gatsby's design by Xavier Cugat's brother, Francis, has become inextricably linked to the novel's tone, with a depth that few, if any, other wrapper designs have managed. Fitzgerald's comment to his editor Maxwell Perkins ("For Christ's sake don't give anyone that jacket you're saving for me. I've written it into the book.") has long intrigued readers as a reference to one of the novels most evocative images, that of a "girl whose disembodied face floated along the dark cornices and blinding signs."

REFERENCE:

Bruccoli A11.I.a; Connolly 48