Sometimes a short book casts a long shadow. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s slim 1925 novel The Great Gatsby looms large in American culture: It has sold well over 25 million copies and spawned film adaptations ranging from a lost silent movie to A-list productions with Redford and DiCaprio. There’s a Gatsby opera, a forthcoming graphic novel, and even a retro computer game in the style of the original Nintendo. It wasn’t always canonical literature — like many classics, the book was widely considered a flop until after the author’s death — but now this gem of the Jazz Age is a …
This article appears as “Before the Crash” in the June 1, 2020, print edition of National Review.
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