Fitzgerald Publishes Gatsby: The Jazz Age Captured
F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby sold only 20,000 copies in its first year and earned mixed reviews when published on April 10, 1925. Fitzgerald was disappointed and believed the novel had failed. He died in 1940 thinking himself a forgotten writer. The book's resurrection came during World War II, when the Council on Books in Wartime distributed 155,000 free copies to American soldiers overseas. By the 1950s it had entered high school curricula and never left. Today it sells roughly 500,000 copies annually. The novel's examination of the American Dream through the eyes of a self-invented millionaire resonated more powerfully with each passing decade of American consumer culture.
April 10, 1925
101 years ago
Key Figures & Places
What Else Happened on April 10
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