Fun facts about The Great Gatsby and its author, F. Scott Fitzgerald

1. The Great Gatsby sold no more than 25,000 copies in Fitzgerald’s lifetime. It has now sold over 25 million copies. Fitzgerald’s second novel, The Great Gatsby was first published in 1925. It is narrated by Nick Carraway, a Yale graduate and WWI veteran who goes to live on Long Island, next door to Jay Gatsby, a rich tycoon known for throwing parties. The novel’s evocation of 1920s America and its critique of the American Dream has helped to ensure its place among the great American novels, but it was outsold at the time by This Side of Paradise, Fitzgerald’s first novel, published in 1920.