The Great Gatsby (For Further Study)

For Further Study

• Harold Bloom, editor, F. Scott Fitzgerald's 'The Great Gatsby': Modern Critical Interpretations, Chelsea House, 1986.

  This book contains eight articles with an introduction, on the novel's structure, Gatsby as an "American" novel, and the wasteland, and includes the article by David Parker, "Two Versions of the Hero."

• Harold Bloom, editor, Gatsby, Major Literary Characters Series, Chelsea House, 1991.

  This comprehensive collection of articles focusing on the novel's "hero," Gatsby, begins with 25 critical extracts on the character and the author from letters, reviews, and articles. Of particular interest is the article by Arnold Weinstein, "Fiction as Greatness: The Case of Gatsby" (1985) which reads the novel as being about making meaning, or creating belief. This includes both Gatsby's fiction of himself and Nick's story of this. The collection also includes an important early article on the time theme by R. W. Stallman, "Gatsby and the Hole in Time" (1955).

• M. J. Bruce, editor, New Essays on 'The Great Gatsby', Cambridge University Press, 1985.

  This shorter work (five articles with an introduction) also includes an interesting overview of the novel's impact on fiction and criticism over the decades: "Gatsby's Long Shadow: Influence and Endurance," by Richard Anderson.

• Colin S. Cass, "'Pandered in Whispers': Narrative Reliability in The Great Gatsby," in College Literature, Vol. 7, 1980, pp. 113-24.

  Investigates the role of narrator Nick Carraway in the novel and his reliability as the narrator of events.

• A. T. Crosland, A Concordance to F. Scott Fitzgerald's 'The Great Gatsby', Gale, 1975.

  The concordance provides cross-referenced lists of every word in the novel, assisting in consideration of the use and frequency of certain words or word-groups (such as "eye," 'blind," "see," "blink," "wink," and the famous accidental use of "irises," for example).

• Scott Donaldson, editor, Critical Essays on F. Scott Fitzgerald's 'The Great Gatsby', G. K. Hall, 1984.

  This balanced survey of critical issues (21 essays with an introduction, and excerpts from letters to and from Fitzgerald about the novel) contains some of the nowclassic articles or chapters from other books. It features treatments of sources for the novel, the novel's complicated revisions in its composition, and the historical aspect of the work.

• F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli, Cambridge University Press, 1991.

  Bruccoli's critical edition of the novel contains the useful "apparatus" (notes keyed to page numbers in the novel) which had been published separately in 1974, when the novel was still under copyright protection. This edition now explains many of the novel's more obscure references, and points to some of its infamous inconsistencies (the age of Daisy Fay's daughter, for instance). Bruccoli himself is perhaps the most prolific of Fitzgerald's biographers and critics, and has also edited numerous editions of Fitzgerald's correspondence, manuscript facsimiles, notebooks, and even accounts ledgers.

• Fitzgerald-Hemingway Annual, various years.

  This yearly periodical devotes itself to the works of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway.

• Alfred Kazin, F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Man and His Work, Twayne, 1951.

  This collection of essays on the author's literature is considered to be one of the best single volumes of criticism on Fitzgerald. Arranged chronologically, the material ranges from early reviews of the first novel through other critical reactions to Fitzgerald.

• Ernest Lockridge, editor, Twentieth-Century Interpretations of 'The Great Gatsby': A Collection of Critical Essays, Prentice Hall, 1968.

  An earlier collection of seven articles and nine brief "View Points" on the novel, briefly encapsulating a range of different approaches to the novel.

• Irving Malin, "'Absolution': Absolving Lies," inThe Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald: New Approaches in Criticism, edited by Jackson Bryer, University of Wisconsin Press, 1982.

  This article links the ideas of the short story with the The Great Gatsby. The author demonstrates how Fitzgerald is, to some extent, a religious writer.

• James R. Mellow, Invented Lives, Houghton Mifflin, 1984. This is a full portrait of Fitzgerald, his hunger for fame, his destructive marriage, and a backward look to an era that continues to dazzle us with its variety and intrigue.

  James E. Miller, Jr., The Fictional Technique of F. Scott Fitzgerald, New York University, 1964.

• This book discusses the literary influences on Fitzgerald's career, most significantly, Edmund Wilson, H. L. Mencken, Ring Lardner, and Ernest Hemingway.

  James Tuttleton, The Novel of Manners, Norton, 1972.

• The book offers a revealing perspective on Fitzgerald's ability to identify social and cultural manners in the 1920s American society. Reference is made to Henry James and other writers' works.