Just found out the first edition of 'The Great Gatsby' sold less than 25,000 copies

I was reading an article from the New York Public Library archives online, and it mentioned that when 'The Great Gatsby' first came out in 1925, it was a total flop. The book sold under 25,000 copies in Fitzgerald's whole life. Our book club just finished it last month, and everyone was talking about how it's this perfect American novel. But knowing it bombed at first makes you think, right? It only became a classic after Fitzgerald died and they printed cheap copies for soldiers in World War II. It makes me wonder how many books we call 'must-reads' today were hated when they came out. Has your club ever read a book that got way more popular after the author was gone?

3 comments

3 Comments

logan_gonzalez23d ago

But what if some books just get lucky? Maybe we call them classics because they fit a later trend, not because they're actually that good. Could be we're just bad at judging art in the moment.

nathana4824d ago

That bit about the cheap soldier copies is what gets me. It's like the book needed to be forgotten first. Moby-Dick was a total dud for decades. Now it's this huge thing. Same with a lot of poetry. Emily Dickinson's work only got big after she died. Makes you wonder what's sitting in a drawer right now that we'll all call a classic in fifty years.

maxpatel24d ago

Man, you're so right about that, @nathana48. It's wild how time changes what we see as good. I bet there's some amazing stuff on someone's hard drive right now that just doesn't fit our current trends. The trick is to just make the work for yourself and put it out there, then let go. Who knows what sticks? Makes you want to go digging in old forums for lost stories, doesn't it?