It failed. Honestly, that’s the part people forget. When F. Scott Fitzgerald saw the initial sales numbers for The Great Gatsby in 1925, he was gutted. He died in 1940 thinking he was a "has-been" and that his thin little novel about a bootlegger was a relic of a forgotten era. Now, as we hit The Great Gatsby 100th anniversary, the book isn't just a classroom staple; it’s a massive cultural engine that refuses to run out of gas.
We’re obsessed with it. Why? It isn't just the flashy cars or the flapper dresses. It’s because Gatsby is the ultimate story about "the grind" and the inevitable crash that follows.
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Back in April 1925, Scribners moved maybe 20,000 copies. Compare that to today, where it sells hundreds of thousands of copies every year. The transition from a commercial flop to the definitive American novel is one of the weirdest arcs in literary history. It took a world war—literally—to make this book famous. During WWII, the Council on Books in Wartime distributed millions of "Armed Services Editions" to soldiers. They read about Gatsby in foxholes. They identified with the longing, the distance, and the idea of recreating a life that had been paused by chaos.
The Actual History of The Great Gatsby 100th anniversary
Let's be real: most people remember the 2013 Baz Luhrmann movie more than the prose. They remember Leo holding the martini glass. But the 100th anniversary of its publication marks a century of us trying to figure out if Jay Gatsby was a hero or a delusional criminal.
Fitzgerald wrote much of the manuscript while living on the French Riviera. He was surrounded by the "Lost Generation," people like Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Stein, who were all fundamentally broken by the first World War. You can feel that exhaustion in the writing. The book wasn't supposed to be a celebration of wealth. It was a warning. Yet, here we are a hundred years later, throwing Gatsby-themed parties where we drink the very champagne Fitzgerald was satirizing. The irony is thick enough to choke on.
Why the Copyright Change Changed Everything
A few years ago, in 2021, the book entered the public domain. This was a massive turning point leading up to The Great Gatsby 100th anniversary.
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Suddenly, anyone could write a sequel. Anyone could make a movie without asking the Fitzgerald estate for permission. We got Nick, a prequel by Michael Farris Smith. We got graphic novels, feminist retellings from Jordan Baker’s perspective, and even a musical with music by Florence Welch from Florence + The Machine. This explosion of new content kept the story alive in the lead-up to the centennial. It’s no longer just a "classic" sitting on a shelf; it’s a living, breathing piece of intellectual property that belongs to everyone.
What Most People Get Wrong About Jay Gatsby
Gatsby isn’t a romantic.
Okay, maybe that’s a hot take, but hear me out. He’s an obsessive. He doesn't love Daisy Buchanan; he loves the idea of Daisy. He loves what she represents—the old money, the status, the "voice full of money." When we celebrate the 100th anniversary of this book, we’re actually celebrating a character who was a pioneer of the "fake it till you make it" lifestyle.
He changed his name from James Gatz. He invented a fake history at Oxford. He bought a mansion across the bay just to be near a light. In 2025, we call this "personal branding." Gatsby was the first influencer. He curated an image, threw parties for people he didn't like, and waited for the "likes" to roll in. The tragedy is that the "likes" didn't save him when things got messy.
The social hierarchy in the book is still terrifyingly accurate. You have the "West Egg" (new money, flashy, try-hard) and the "East Egg" (old money, bored, careless). Tom and Daisy Buchanan are "careless people" who "smash up things and creatures and then retreat back into their money." Tell me that doesn't sound like the headlines we read today about tech billionaires or political dynasties.
The Mystery of the Valley of Ashes
We have to talk about the eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg. Those giant, fading glasses on a billboard in the wasteland between West Egg and New York City.
People always say they represent God watching a godless society. Maybe. But they also represent the literal commercialization of everything. Even our "watchers" are advertisements. In the context of the 100th anniversary, the Valley of Ashes feels like a precursor to our modern concerns about the environment and the "flyover states" left behind by the ultra-wealthy.
How to Celebrate the Centenary Without Being a "Careless Person"
If you want to actually engage with the legacy of Fitzgerald’s work this year, don't just buy a gold-foiled edition of the book.
Read his letters. Fitzgerald’s correspondence with his editor, Maxwell Perkins, shows a man who was desperately trying to edit his way to perfection. He agonized over the title. At one point, he wanted to call it Trimalchio in West Egg or Under the Red, White, and Blue. Thank God Perkins talked him out of it.
Visit Long Island. Go to the "Gold Coast." While many of the original mansions have been torn down or turned into event spaces, the geography is still there. You can stand on the shore and look across the water. You can feel that "green light" energy.
- Re-read the original text but skip the SparkNotes. Look for the descriptions of the weather. The heat in the hotel scene isn't just a setting; it's a character.
- Watch the 1974 version with Robert Redford. It’s slower, sure, but it captures the stillness and the underlying sadness better than the glittery 2013 version.
- Check out the 100th-anniversary exhibitions. Major libraries, including the Princeton University Library (which holds Fitzgerald's papers), are running special displays of original manuscripts and photographs.
The Ending That Still Bites
The last line of the book is arguably the most famous in American literature: "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
It’s not a hopeful ending. It’s about the impossibility of escaping where we came from. No matter how much money Gatsby made, no matter how many shirts he threw in his bedroom, he couldn't outrun James Gatz.
As we hit The Great Gatsby 100th anniversary, that message feels weirdly urgent. We live in an era of constant reinvention, but Fitzgerald reminds us that the past is a gravity well. You can't just delete your history.
To truly honor the 100 years of this masterpiece, look past the jazz and the gin. Look at the people. Look at the desperation. The book is a masterpiece because it captures the specific American ache of wanting something that doesn't exist anymore. Or maybe something that never existed at all.
Actionable Insight for Fans and Collectors:
If you're looking for the best way to commemorate this milestone, skip the mass-market reprints. Look for the "100th Anniversary Centenary Edition" released by authorized publishers which often include the original 1925 cover art by Francis Cugat—the iconic "Celestial Eyes." For a deeper dive, track down a copy of The Venture of the Great Gatsby, which compiles Fitzgerald's notes and the various stages of the manuscript. It’s the closest you’ll get to seeing the gears turn in a genius’s head before the world told him he’d failed.