Today: Headlines from April 10, 1925

Today 100 Years Ago: April 10, 1925

A century ago, the Roaring Twenties were in full swing. Jazz spilled from speakeasies, skyscrapers clawed at the clouds, and modernist writers sharpened their pens. On this very day in 1925, one of the most enduring American novels first landed on bookstore shelves—ushering in an age-defining portrait of longing, decadence, and disillusionment.

1. F. Scott Fitzgerald Publishes The Great Gatsby

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On April 10, 1925, Charles Scribner’s Sons quietly released a 218-page novel by a 28-year-old Midwesterner named F. Scott Fitzgerald. The Great Gatsby arrived with only modest fanfare—20,870 copies printed, a $2 price tag, and initial reviews that ranged from puzzled to polite. Yet within its slim spine lay a glittering critique of the American Dream that would outlive its author and define an era.

• The scene in 1925: New York’s literary circles buzzed with modernist experimentation. Ernest Hemingway was still an unknown newspaper correspondent in Paris, William Faulkner had yet to publish a novel, and Zelda Fitzgerald’s Jazz Age glamour eclipsed her husband’s fading celebrity. Fitzgerald himself, mired in debts and drinking, poured his anxieties about wealth and status into the shimmering green light across the bay.

• Early reception: Sales were underwhelming. Fitzgerald earned just $3,816 by the end of 1925—barely enough to cover the couple’s lavish lifestyle. One reviewer dismissed the book as “an inconsequential story,” while another scolded the author for an “abrupt ending.” Disheartened, Fitzgerald told Maxwell Perkins, “Of all the reviews, even the most enthusiastic, not one had the slightest idea what the book was about.”

• Why it mattered: Gatsby distilled the illusions of prosperity that swirled through post-war America. Its razor-sharp prose captured the hollowness behind the champagne sparkle, foreshadowing the market crash only four years later.

A 2025 Reflection

Nearly every high-school syllabus now reveres Fitzgerald’s masterpiece; first editions fetch over half a million dollars at auction. In 2025, we stream Baz Luhrmann’s neon adaptation in 4K, debate whether NFTs have replaced Gatsby’s fabled gold, and still chase our own green lights—only now they blink from smartphone screens rather than West Egg dock posts.

“So we beat on, boats against the current…”—words that resonate as AI, climate change, and space tourism redefine the American Dream yet again.