On June 16 a first edition of
The Great Gatsby inscribed by F. Scott Fitzgerald leads Bonhams’ “Voices of the
20th Century” auction.
Published in 1925, The Great
Gatsby is among the most adored novels in American literature. Fitzgerald gave
this volume—estimated at $80,000 to $100,000—to close friend and fellow author
Harold Goldman, one of the inspirations for Jay Gatsby himself. The handwritten
note reads, “For Harold Goldman/The original ‘Gatsby’ of this story, with
thanks for letting me reveal these secrets of his past/Alcatraz/Cell Block
17/I’ll be out soon, kid. Remember me to the mob. Fitzgerald).”
After the commercial success of
This Side of Paradise (1920) and The Beautiful and Damned (1922), 27-year-old
Fitzgerald set to work on his third novel, which Edwin Clark of The New York
Times called “a curious book, a mystical, glamourous story of today.” Yet
Gatsby didn’t sell, and by the early 1930s, it was difficult to find a copy in
bookstores. Around that time, Fitzgerald’s life began to fall apart. Serious
bouts of alcoholism erupted into heated arguments with family and close friends,
including Fitzgerald's editor at Scribner's, Maxwell Perkins.
The Great Gatsby eventually became a wild
success, but not until after Fitzgerald's untimely death in 1940 at the age of
44. Today it is considered by many to be the quintessential American novel and
has been adapted seven times for the big screen, perhaps most famously by Baz
Luhrmann.