The Great Gatsby
EditionOriginal English text, 1925 first edition
One summer on Long Island, a man of mysterious fortune throws open his house to the world, hoping one guest will wander in.
Also in the library: the complete Korean translation.
Anyone can read the first chapter. Join free to read to the end and download EPUB and PDF.
DRM-free files. Translation CC BY-NC 4.0; the original work is in the public domain.
About the book
In the summer of 1922 Nick Carraway rents a small house in West Egg, next door to the mansion of Jay Gatsby, whose parties fill his lawns with hundreds of strangers every weekend. Across the bay lives Nick’s cousin Daisy, married to the rich and careless Tom Buchanan, and the green light at the end of her dock is what Gatsby looks at every night. Fitzgerald’s short novel follows what happens when Gatsby tries to bring back the past.
This is the complete text of the first edition, published by Charles Scribner’s Sons in 1925, with Fitzgerald’s dedication and epigraph. The spelling and punctuation of 1925 are kept, and nothing has been corrected or added. Our complete Korean translation was made from the same text, chapter for chapter.
Highlights
- Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us.
- So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
Contents
Anyone can read up to the first chapter. Chapters with a lock are open to free members.
Colophon
Original English text, 1925 first edition. Licensed CC BY-NC 4.0.Full colophon
The Great Gatsby
Author · F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)
First publication · April 1925, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York.
Source text · A public-domain digital transcription of the first edition (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1925).
Extent · Complete and unabridged · nine chapters, with the author’s dedication and epigraph · about 48,000 words
Copyright · First published in the United States in 1925; the work entered the U.S. public domain on 1 January 2021. The author died in 1940.
This edition · The original English text, edited for Ether Library. The text itself is in the public domain. Ether Library’s editor’s note, this colophon, and the cover design are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0).
Edition · English edition 1.0 · October 2026
Typography · Set in Lora (SIL Open Font License 1.1). Cover painting and design by Ether Library.
Text in the public domain · Front and back matter CC BY-NC 4.0
Ether Library · No. 0001