On this date in 1925 F Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby was published. 10 facts about the book:
It’s set in Long Island, New York, during the Jazz Age. It is told from the point of view of a narrator, Nick Carraway, a neighbour who rents a cottage in the area and describes his interactions with the mysterious millionaire, Jay Gatsby.
The Great Gatsby wasn’t the first choice of title. Several others were considered, including Ash-Heaps and Millionaires; Trimalchio; Trimalchio in West Egg; On the Road to West Egg; Under the Red, White, and Blue; Gold-Hatted Gatsby and The High-Bouncing Lover. Fitzgerald’s own favourite was Trimalchio in West Egg. Trimalchio was a character in a 1st-century work of fiction called Satyricon. His publishers vetoed this choice because they thought the average reader would not have heard of Trimalchio.
The cover design was commissioned by an unknown individual in the publisher’s art department while Fitzgerald was still working on the novel. The artist was called Francis Cugat, a little known painter from Barcelona. His design had a name: Celestial Eyes. Fitzgerald loved it. He liked it so much, in fact, that he re-wrote part of the novel in order to incorporate it.
When it first came out, The Great Gatsby wasn’t a huge success. Fitzgerald put this down to the lack of sympathetic female characters at a time when most of the novel reading audience was female. That, and the fact his favoured title wasn’t used.
So how did it become an American classic? It experienced a revival as part of a scheme to send books to soldiers serving in the second world war. The Council on Books in Wartime distributed 150,000 free copies to American soldiers serving overseas. Enough of them liked it to trigger a re-examination of the work by the critics.
Gatsby may well have been based on a first world war veteran called Max Gerlach, who Fitzgerald knew when he lived in Great Neck. One of Fitzgerald's scrapbooks contains a photo of the Fitzgeralds with a handwritten note which reads, “Here for a few days on business—How are you and the family old Sport? Gerlach.” “Old Sport,” is how Gatsby addresses the narrator, Nick Carraway.
The character of Daisy Buchanan was based on one of Fitzgerald’s ex-girlfriends, a woman called Ginevra King, who some scholars have said was the most important relationship he’d ever had, including the one with his wife. Her best friend, Jordan Baker, was based on one of Ginevra’s good friends, Edith Cummings, who was, like the character, a golfer, who won the U.S. Women’s Amateur in 1924 and was known as “The Fairway Flapper.” Her name is a conglomeration of two two popular car brands of the time, the Jordan Motor Car Company and the Baker Motor Vehicle. The names were chosen to suggest that Daisy’s friend had a “fast” reputation.
Inspiration for the Gatsby mansion is thought to have come from two real life stately homes: Oheka Castle, in Huntington, New York, which to this day remains the second largest private estate in the United States; and Beacon Towers, a mansion with more than 140 rooms owned by William Randolph Hearst, which was demolished in 1945.
The epigraph was written by a fictional poet. The poet was actually a character in one of Fitzgerald’s other books, This Side of Paradise.
There have been numerous adaptations for stage, screen, radio and TV, and even a video game. Fitzgerald’s wife, Zelda, was not a fan of the silent film released in 1926. She went to see it, and wrote in a letter that it was “ROTTEN and awful and terrible and we left.”
Beta
(Combat Team Series #2)
Steff was abducted by an evil alien race, the Orbs, at fourteen. Used as a weapon for years, he eventually escapes, but his problems are just beginning. How does a man support himself when his only work experience is a paper round and using an Orb bio-integrated gun?
Warlord is an alien soldier who knows little but war. When the centuries-old conflict which ravaged his planet ends, he seeks out another world where his skills are still relevant. There are always wars on Earth, it seems. However, none of Earth's powerful armies want him.
Natalie has always wanted to visit England and sees a chance to do so while using her martial arts skills, but there are sacrifices she must make in order to fulfil her dream.
Maggie resorted to crime to fund her sister's medical care. She uses her genetic variant abilities to gain access to the rooms of wealthy hotel guests. The Ballards look like rich pickings, but they are not what they seem. When Maggie targets them, little does she know that she is walking into a trap.
Hotel owner Hamilton Lonsdale puts together a combat team to pit against those of other multi-millionaires. He recruits Warlord, Natalie, Maggie and Steff along with a trained gorilla, a probability-altering alien, a stockbroker whose work of art proved to be much more than he'd bargained for, a marketing officer who can create psionic forcefields, a teleporting member of the landed gentry, and a socially awkward fixer. This is Combat Team Beta.
Steff never talks about his time with the Orbs, until he finds a woman who lived through it, too. Steff believes he has finally found happiness, but it is destined to be short-lived. He is left with an unusual legacy which he and Team Beta struggle to comprehend; including why something out there seems determined to destroy it.
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