Byy Donald Gilpin

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald was published by Scribner’s in April 1925, and the Princeton University Library will be celebrating its 100th anniversary throughout the coming month with readings, book talks, performances, and more.

The University library, which received Fitzgerald’s papers in 1950 as a gift from his daughter, currently has 89 boxes plus 11 large cannisters of related materials in its collections, including the original manuscript of The Great Gatsby. It will be offering exhibitions and programming in collaboration with the Princeton Public Library (PPL), Lewis Center for the Arts, Cotsen Children’s Library, Friends of Princeton University Library, Princeton Garden Theatre, and the Arts Council of Princeton (ACP).

Though considered by many to be the Great American Novel, The Great Gatsby was not a commercial success at first, receiving mixed reviews from the critics and selling fewer than 20,000 copies in the first six months after publication. It was seemingly forgotten by the time of the author’s death in 1940, but during World War II, an Armed Services edition of the novel brought new readers, re-readers, and enthusiastic critics. It has been a bestseller ever since, inspiring multiple movies and theater productions, selling a total of almost 30 million copies, and being translated into 42 languages.

“Gatsby’s magic emanates not only from its powerhouse poetic style — in which ordinary American language becomes unearthly — but from the authority with which it nails who we want to be as Americans. Not who we are; who we want to be,” wrote Georgetown University Professor Maureen Corrigan in her 2014 book So We Read On: How The Great Gatsby Came to Be and Why It Endures, which she will be discussing at an April 27 gathering at the Nassau Club and an April 28 panel discussion at Labyrinth Books.

“The Greatness of Gatsby” will be the subject on March 31 at 6:30 p.m. in the Chancellor Green Rotunda on the Princeton University campus, as Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and former Princeton Holder Fellow Martyna Majok and American Repertory Theater Director and Princeton 2009 graduate Kelvin Dinkins Jr. discuss Majok’s book for the new musical Gatsby, An American Myth (2024). The discussion will be moderated by Princeton Theater Professor Stacy Wolf and will also include a performance by Tony Award-nominated writer and actress Sharon Washington.

On April 3 at 5 p.m. in the Drapkin Studio on the second level of the Wallace Dance Building at the Lewis Arts Complex, Literature to Life will present a performance of Kelvin Grullon’s theatrical adaptation of The Great Gatsby performed by Bryce Foley and directed by Grullon with music by A.J. Khaw.

The Princeton Public Library (PPL) near the first floor fireplace on April 7 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. will be the setting for The Great Gatsby Community Filibuster Read-Aloud, reading the entire novel to kick off National Library Week 2025 and take part in Right to Read Day. All are invited to come and listen or sign up on the PPL calendar to secure a time slot for reading.

On April 8 at 7 p.m. the PPL will host an author visit and book launch with Nghi Vo for Don’t Sleep With the Dead, Vo’s novella about Nick Carraway and his life after the end of The Great Gatsby. A March 20 session, already full, at Firestone Library will discuss Vo’s The Chosen and the Beautiful, a retelling of The Great Gatsby from the point of view of Jordan Baker.

Other events taking place in April include a viewing of the Baz Luhrmann’s 2013 The Great Gatsby film at the Princeton Garden Theatre on April 9, a Roaring 20s Headband “Crafternoon” at Princeton University Library on April 1, a Raconteur Radio performance of The Great Gatsby at PPL on April 22, The Great “Catsby” at the Cotsen Children’s Library at Firestone Library on April 26, Corrigan’s presentations at The Nassau Club on April 27 and at Labyrinth Books with Fitzgerald editor Anne Margaret Daniel on April 28, and on Friday, May 2 from 7 to 9 p.m. an “After-Hours Speakeasy” with 1920s-era music by the Glenn Crytzer Quartet.

The University Library opened an extensive online exhibition “Gatsby at 100: The Author and His Creation” last month, and in April will launch the “Living Forever: The Archive of the Great Gatsby” exhibition in the Tiger Tea Room of Firestone Library.

A Gatsby mural on Spring Street, sponsored by the Arts Council of Princeton and created by New Jersey-based artist Allison Wong, is in progress and scheduled for completion by the end of this week.

“When I was sketching out the concept for this mural on my iPad, I knew I wanted to bring key elements from The Great Gatsby to life,” Wong wrote in an email. “I focused on capturing the atmosphere of the Roaring Twenties that represents the glamorous life the characters were trying to chase.”

Fitzgerald arrived at Princeton University in the fall of 1913 for his freshman year. He did not distinguish himself academically, failing several classes and withdrawing two years later. He did, however, find success in writing musicals for The Triangle Club and publishing his writing in the Princeton Tiger humor magazine and the Nassau Literary Magazine.

As a sophomore he became a member of the prestigious Cottage Club, but described himself in a letter as “a poor boy in a rich town; a poor boy in a rich boy’s school; a poor boy in a rich man’s club at Princeton.” Princeton University provided the inspiration for Fitzgerald’s first novel This Side of Paradise (1920), and at the time of his death from a heart attack in 1940 he was reportedly reading the Princeton Alumni Weekly.

Most of “The Great Gatsby at 100” programs are free and open to the public, but some require registration and/or tickets. See library.princeton.edu/gatsby100 for more information and registration details.