The Great Gatsby
New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1925.
A beautiful copy of the first edition, first printing of this Jazz Age cornerstone. Textual errors present: page 60, line 16 "chatter"; page 119, line 22 "northern"; page 165, line 16 "it's"; page 205, lines 9-10 "sick in tired"; page 211, lines 7-8 "Union Street station." [vi], 218 pp. Bound in publisher's dark teal cloth with titles stamped in blind on front board and gilt on spine; lacking the scarce dust jacket. Near Fine with bright and sharp gilt lettering to spine, slight lean, light wear, and several spots of foxing to textblock edges. Traces of paperclip rust to front endsheet, short v-shaped tear to final page. A much nicer copy than normally encountered. Bruccoli A 11.1.a.
The first edition of Fitzgerald's beautiful story of the incandescent life and tragic end of Jay Gatsby, whose rain-soaked and poorly attended funeral prefigured the author's own. "That poor son-of-a-bitch," said Dorothy Parker when she looked at her friend's body. It was a direct quote from his greatest novel, which did not receive the recognition it deserved until it was issued as an Armed Services paperback to more than a hundred thousand American soldiers during the Second World War.
Price: $9,800