The Great Gatsby

Introduction by Min Jin Lee
Edited by Philip McGowan
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A collectible hardcover edition of one of the great American novels—and one of America's most popular—featuring an introduction by Min Jin Lee, the New York Times bestselling author of Pachinko

One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years

A Penguin Vitae Edition


Young, handsome, and fabulously rich, Jay Gatsby seems to have everything. But at his mansion east of New York City, in West Egg, Long Island, where the party seems never to end, he's often alone in the glittering Jazz Age crowd, watching and waiting, as speculation swirls around him—that he's a bootlegger, that he was a German spy during the war, that he even killed a man. As writer Nick Carraway is drawn into this decadent orbit, he begins to see beneath the shimmering surface of the enigmatic Gatsby, for whom one thing will always be out of reach: Nick's cousin, the married Daisy Buchanan, whose house is visible from Gatsby's just across the bay.

A brilliant evocation of the Roaring Twenties and a satire of a postwar America obsessed with wealth and status, The Great Gatsby is a novel whose power remains undiminished after a century. This edition, based on scholarship dating back to the novel's first publication in 1925, restores Fitzgerald's masterpiece to the original American classic he envisioned, and features an introduction addressing how gender, race, class, and sexuality complicate the pursuit of the American Dream.

Penguin Vitae—loosely translated as "Penguin of one's life"—is a deluxe hardcover series from Penguin Classics celebrating a dynamic and diverse landscape of classic fiction and nonfiction from seventy-five years of classics publishing. Penguin Vitae provides readers with beautifully designed classics that have shaped the course of their lives, and welcomes new readers to discover these literary gifts of personal inspiration, intellectual engagement, and creative originality.
“Virtuosic . . . Both imperfect and sublime . . . I’ve read and loved Gatsby for a very long time. . . . I’ve always loved it because it shows that Fitzgerald understood unfairness. . . . I cannot imagine a more persuasive and readable book about lost illusions, class, White Americans in the 1920s, and the perils and vanity of assimilation. . . . I turn to Gatsby because it gives me the sober wisdom to imagine and revise my own American dream, and for that, it has a lasting hold.” ―Min Jin Lee, from the Introduction

“One of the most quintessentially American novels ever written.” ―Time
 
“The American masterwork, the finest work of fiction by any of this country’s writers.” ―The Washington Post

“No novel has more thrillingly portrayed the corrupting obsessions of love and money. . . . The romantic myth of self-creation speaks deeply to readers. . . . The prose, sentence by gorgeous sentence, goes down like spun sugar.” —George Packer, The Atlantic, “The Great American Novels”
F. Scott Fitzgerald was considered the quintessential author of the Jazz Age. Born in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1896, Fitzgerald attended Princeton University, where he began to write seriously. After joining the U.S. Army in 1917, Fitzgerald met Zelda Sayre, whom he later married. In 1920, Fitzgerald's first novel, This Side of Paradise, transformed Fitzgerald overnight into a literary sensation. The Great Gatsby followed in 1925, although it was not as popular at the time as his second novel, The Beautiful and the Damned. Fitzgerald died in 1940 of a heart attack. He was forty-four years old. View titles by F. Scott Fitzgerald

About

A collectible hardcover edition of one of the great American novels—and one of America's most popular—featuring an introduction by Min Jin Lee, the New York Times bestselling author of Pachinko

One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years

A Penguin Vitae Edition


Young, handsome, and fabulously rich, Jay Gatsby seems to have everything. But at his mansion east of New York City, in West Egg, Long Island, where the party seems never to end, he's often alone in the glittering Jazz Age crowd, watching and waiting, as speculation swirls around him—that he's a bootlegger, that he was a German spy during the war, that he even killed a man. As writer Nick Carraway is drawn into this decadent orbit, he begins to see beneath the shimmering surface of the enigmatic Gatsby, for whom one thing will always be out of reach: Nick's cousin, the married Daisy Buchanan, whose house is visible from Gatsby's just across the bay.

A brilliant evocation of the Roaring Twenties and a satire of a postwar America obsessed with wealth and status, The Great Gatsby is a novel whose power remains undiminished after a century. This edition, based on scholarship dating back to the novel's first publication in 1925, restores Fitzgerald's masterpiece to the original American classic he envisioned, and features an introduction addressing how gender, race, class, and sexuality complicate the pursuit of the American Dream.

Penguin Vitae—loosely translated as "Penguin of one's life"—is a deluxe hardcover series from Penguin Classics celebrating a dynamic and diverse landscape of classic fiction and nonfiction from seventy-five years of classics publishing. Penguin Vitae provides readers with beautifully designed classics that have shaped the course of their lives, and welcomes new readers to discover these literary gifts of personal inspiration, intellectual engagement, and creative originality.

Praise

“Virtuosic . . . Both imperfect and sublime . . . I’ve read and loved Gatsby for a very long time. . . . I’ve always loved it because it shows that Fitzgerald understood unfairness. . . . I cannot imagine a more persuasive and readable book about lost illusions, class, White Americans in the 1920s, and the perils and vanity of assimilation. . . . I turn to Gatsby because it gives me the sober wisdom to imagine and revise my own American dream, and for that, it has a lasting hold.” ―Min Jin Lee, from the Introduction

“One of the most quintessentially American novels ever written.” ―Time
 
“The American masterwork, the finest work of fiction by any of this country’s writers.” ―The Washington Post

“No novel has more thrillingly portrayed the corrupting obsessions of love and money. . . . The romantic myth of self-creation speaks deeply to readers. . . . The prose, sentence by gorgeous sentence, goes down like spun sugar.” —George Packer, The Atlantic, “The Great American Novels”

Author

F. Scott Fitzgerald was considered the quintessential author of the Jazz Age. Born in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1896, Fitzgerald attended Princeton University, where he began to write seriously. After joining the U.S. Army in 1917, Fitzgerald met Zelda Sayre, whom he later married. In 1920, Fitzgerald's first novel, This Side of Paradise, transformed Fitzgerald overnight into a literary sensation. The Great Gatsby followed in 1925, although it was not as popular at the time as his second novel, The Beautiful and the Damned. Fitzgerald died in 1940 of a heart attack. He was forty-four years old. View titles by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Videos from the 2024 First-Year Experience® Conference are now available

We’re pleased to share videos from the 2024 First-Year Experience® Conference. Whether you weren’t able to join us at the conference or would simply like to hear the talks again, please take a moment to view the clips below.   Penguin Random House Author Breakfast Monday, February 19th, 7:15 – 8:45 am PST This event

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