F. Scott Fitzgerald: Trimalchio: An Early Version of 'The Great Gatsby'

This first edition ever published of Trimalchio, an early and complete version of F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel The Great Gatsby now appears in paperback. Fitzgerald wrote the novel as Trimalchio and submitted it to Maxwell Perkins, his editor at Scribner's, who had the novel set in type and the galleys sent to Fitzgerald in France. Fitzgerald then virtually rewrote the novel in galleys, producing the book we know as The Great Gatsby. This ur-version, Trimalchio, has never been published and is markedly different from The Great Gatsby: two chapters were completely rewritten for the published novel, and the rest of the book was heavily revised. Characterization is different, the narrative voice of Nick Carraway is altered and, most importantly, the revelation of Jay Gatsby's past is handled in a wholly different way.

James L. W. West III is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of English at Pennsylvania State University, where he directs the Penn State Center for the History of the Book