F Scott Fitzgerald

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940) was an American writer of novels and short stories, whose works are evocative of the Jazz Age, a term he coined himself. He is widely regarded as one of the twentieth century's great writers. Fitzgerald is considered a member of the "Lost Generation", Americans born in the 1890s who came of age during World War I. He finished four novels, left a fifth unfinished, and wrote dozens of short stories that treat themes of youth and promise (his first act), and despair and age (act two: Fitzgerald is also famous for the phrase, "There are no second acts in American lives").

THE GREAT GATSBY

The Great Gatsby is a novel by the American author F. Scott Fitzgerald. First published on April 10, 1925, the story is set in Long Island's North Shore and New York City during the summer of 1922.

The novel chronicles an era that Fitzgerald himself dubbed the "Jazz Age." Following the shock and chaos of World War I, American society enjoyed unprecedented levels of prosperity during the "roaring" 1920s as the economy soared. At the same time, Prohibition, the ban on the sale and manufacture of alcohol mandated by the Eighteenth Amendment, made millionaires out of bootleggers and led to an increase in organized crime. Although Fitzgerald, like Nick Carraway in his novel, idolized the riches and glamour of the age, he was uncomfortable with the unrestrained materialism and lack of morality that went with it.

Although it was adapted into both a Broadway play and a Hollywood film within a year of publication, it was not popular upon initial printing, selling fewer than 25,000 copies during the remaining fifteen years of Fitzgerald's life. The book was largely forgotten during the Great Depression and World War II. After it was republished in 1945 and 1953, it quickly found a wide readership and is now often regarded as an example of the Great American Novel. The Great Gatsby has since become a standard text in high school and university courses on American literature in countries around the world, and is ranked #2 on the Modern Library's list of the 100 Best Novels of the 20th Century.