The Great Gatsby
- 193
- Pages
- about 3.5 h
- Reading time
- Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century
- 20th Century's Greatest Hits: 100 English-Language Books of Fiction
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Our view
Beneath the glitter of its Jazz Age parties, this short novel takes a cold look at class privilege and the danger of living in the past. Fitzgerald never spells his points out, which is the book’s elegance and, for some, its problem: the prose can seem elusive and the opening slow, with the emotional weight arriving late. For readers who value atmosphere and subtext over plot.
Worth knowing Scribner published it in April 1925 and it sold disappointingly; Fitzgerald died in 1940 believing it had failed. Its revival owed much to the roughly 155,000 copies printed as Armed Services Editions for American soldiers during the Second World War. Among the titles he considered was Trimalchio in West Egg. In the US it has been in the public domain since 2021, so free editions are easy to find.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
The Great Gatsby is a 1925 tragedy novel by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. Set in the Jazz Age on Long Island, near New York City, the novel depicts first-person narrator Nick Carraway's interactions with Jay Gatsby, a mysterious millionaire obsessed with reuniting with his former lover, Daisy Buchanan.
Where the score comes from
The sources average 7.4 across 5,711 ratings. With that many, the reader vote carries 97% of the weight and the score stays at 7.5 — the Classics average of 7.7 barely moves it.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 7.9 | 243 | 4% |
| Hardcover | 7.4 | 5.5K | 96% |
Frequently asked
How long is The Great Gatsby?
It has 193 pages — shorter than 80% of the ranked books in Classics.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Classics — with scores between 7.4 and 7.5, closest to this book.
