Before You Begin

Before you begin.

First published in 1925, The Great Gatsby looks back at 1922, when new fortunes, old family names, and postwar hopes pressed into uneasy contact. Nick Carraway rents a modest house in West Egg and becomes drawn to his neighbour Jay Gatsby, whose splendid parties gather people around a private, persistent hope. Across the water, Daisy and Tom Buchanan seem to belong to a more settled world of inherited privilege.

Fitzgerald’s novel asks what happens when longing meets money, reputation, and the past. Its Jazz Age brilliance carries a darker rhythm: elegant rooms and bright nights sit beside social division, moral evasions, and the cost of wanting to begin again.

This edition pairs the complete novel with an illustrated companion to its people and places. Character portraits, maps, relationship boards, and scenes accompany the reading; chapter recaps open one chapter at a time, keeping the visual account within the pages you have reached. Begin with Nick’s first arrival in West Egg, and follow the light across the bay.