World's Greatest Classic Books

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800 B.C.-999

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1600-1849

1850-1899

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1935-1970

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Featured novel:

THE GREAT GATSBY
by
F. Scott Fitzgerald

Available in: Canada | US | UK

"Now we have an American masterpiece in its final form: the original crystal has shaped itself into the true diamond. This is the novel as Fitzgerald wished it to be, and so it is what we have dreamed of, sleeping and waking." - James Dickey

This is the definitive, textually accurate edition of a classic of twentieth-century literature, The Great Gatsby. The story of the fabulously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan has been acclaimed by generations of readers. But the first edition contained a number of errors resulting from Fitzgerald's extensive revisions and a rushed production schedule. Subsequent printings introduced further departures from the author's words. This edition, based on the Cambridge critical text, restores all the language of Fitzgerald's masterpiece. Drawing on the manuscript and surviving proofs of the novel, along with Fitzgerald's later revisions and corrections, this is the authorized text - The Great Gatsby as Fitzgerald intended it.

F. Scott Fitzgerald was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1896, attended Princeton University, and published his first novel, This Side of Paradise, in 1920. That same year he married Zelda Sayre and the couple divided their time between New York, Paris, and the Riviera, becoming a part of the American expatriate circle that included Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway, and John Dos Passos. Fitzgerald was a major new literary voice, and his masterpieces include The Beautiful and Damned, The Great Gatsby, and Tender Is the Night. He died of a heart attack in 1940 at the age of forty-four, while working on The Love of the Last Tycoon. For his sharp social insight and breathtaking lyricism, Fitzgerald stands out as one of the most important American writers of the twentieth century.

Featured author:

Virginia Woolf
Virginia Woolf

A highly respected journalist and literary critic, Virginia published a series of important non-fiction books including A Room of One's Own that appeared in 1929. An important book in the history of feminism, it argues the need for the economic independence of women and explores the consequences of a male-dominated society. Woolf returned to the theme of women's liberation in her book Three Guineas (1938).

Virginia Woolf had recurring bouts of depression. The outbreak of the Second World War increased her mental turmoil and on 28th March, 1941, she committed suicide by drowning herself in the Ouse, near her home in Rodmell, Sussex.