The Great Gatsby: A Norton Critical Edition (Norton Critical Editions)

Product Description
“This superb volume offers a rich cultural fabric that greatly deepens our understanding of The Great Gatsby. Illuminating short stories by Fitzgerald, his correspondence, and his literary inspirations are all featured here. An indispensable edition.” ―Wai Chee Dimock, Yale University
This Norton Critical Edition includes:
The 1925 first American edition text of the novel.
A full introduction, a note on the text, and explanatory annotations by David J. Alworth.
An unusually rich selection of contextual materials, including Fitzgerald’s sources for his greatest novel, excerpts from his ledger and notebooks, three of his related short stories, twenty-two carefully chosen letters concerning The Great Gatsby, and eight selections―four of them by Fitzgerald―on the Jazz Age and American Modernism.
A wide range of critical assessments, covering initial reviews and reactions, Fitzgerald’s revival, and reconsiderations and recent readings.
A chronology and selected bibliography.
About the Series
Read by more than 12 million students over fifty-five years, Norton Critical Editions set the standard for apparatus that is right for undergraduate readers. The three-part format―annotated text, contexts, and criticism―helps students to better understand, analyze, and appreciate the literature, while opening a wide range of teaching possibilities for instructors. Whether in print or in digital format, Norton Critical Editions provide all the resources students need.
About the Author
Born in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1896,
F. Scott Fitzgerald attended Princeton University, joined the army during World War I, and in 1920 married Zelda Sayre and published his first novel,
This Side of Paradise. His books include
The Beautiful and Damned and
Tender Is the Night. He died at the age of forty-four while working on
The Last Tycoon. New Directions also publishes Fitzgerald’s
The Crack-Up and
On Booze.
David J. Alworth is John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Humanities at Harvard, where he teaches in the Department of English, the Program in History and Literature, and the Program in American Studies. He also codirects Novel Theory Across the Disciplines, a seminar at Mahindra Humanities Center. He has published Site Reading: Fiction, Art, Social Form (2016) and The Look of the Book: Jackets, Covers, and Art at the Edges of Literature, with designer Peter Mendelsund (2020). Alworth’s essays and articles have appeared in American Literary History, New Literary History, ELH, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and Public Books.