FITZGERALD, F. Scott.

The Great Gatsby.

New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons , 1925.

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Sheilah's Graham's Copy of The Great Gatsby

First edition, first state. Sheilah Graham's copy with her signature to the front free endpaper. Graham, one of the most influential gossip columnists in Hollywood, is remembered today as the last lover of novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald, their relationship through her autobiographical account of that period, Beloved Infidel, a best-seller, which was also made into a film. In her youth, she was a freelance writer for Fleet Street in London, and had published several short stories and two novels. These early experiences would converge in her career in Hollywood, that spanned nearly four decades, as a successful columnist and author. In a letter from May 1940 to S.J. Perelman, Fitzgerald invited him to visit, promising "Sheilah will be with me, just as merry as can be, to greet you on the porch with a julep" (Letters, Turnbull, ed., 1963). Little more than six months later it was Graham who would find Fitzgerald at home dead of a heart attack. Bruccoli A11.1.a; Connolly, The Modern Movement 48.with "chatter" p.60, "northern" p.119, "sick in tired" p.205, and "Union Street station" p. 211. Octavo, original dark green cloth. In fine condition, with the gilt lettering to the spine bright. A significant association.

In 1922, Fitzgerald announced his decision to write "something new--something extraordinary and beautiful and simple and intricately patterned." That extraordinary, beautiful, intricately patterned, and above all, simple novel became The Great Gatsby, arguably Fitzgerald's finest work and certainly the book for which he is best known. A portrait of the Jazz Age in all of its decadence and excess, Gatsby captured the spirit of the author's generation and earned itself a permanent place in American mythology. Cyril Connolly called The Great Gatsby one of the half dozen best American novels: "Gatsby remains a prose poem of delight and sadness which has by now introduced two generations to the romance of America, as Huckleberry Finn and Leaves of Grass introduced those before it" (Modern Movement 48). Consistently gaining popularity after World War II, the novel became an important part of American high school curricula. It was the basis for numerous stage and film adaptations. Gatsby had four film adaptations, with two exceptionally big-budget versions: the 1974 version starring Robert Redford and Mia Farrow, as well as Baz Luhrmann’s 2013 version starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire and Carrie Mulligan. Fitzgerald’s granddaughter praised Lurhmann’s adaptation, stating “Scott would be proud.”