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The Great Gatsby and The Last Tycoon
F. Scott Fitzgerald's two novels, The Great Gatsby and The Last Tycoon, with an introduction by J. B. Priestley.
308 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1941
29 people are currently reading
440 people want to read
About the author
F. Scott Fitzgerald
2,333 books25.5k followersFrancis Scott Key Fitzgerald, widely known simply as Scott Fitzgerald, was an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. He is best known for his novels depicting the flamboyance and excess of the Jazz Age, a term he popularized in his short story collection Tales of the Jazz Age. During his lifetime, he published four novels, four story collections, and 164 short stories. Although he achieved temporary popular success and fortune in the 1920s, Fitzgerald received critical acclaim only after his death and is now widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century.
Born into a middle-class family in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Fitzgerald was raised primarily in New York state. He attended Princeton University where he befriended future literary critic Edmund Wilson. Owing to a failed romantic relationship with Chicago socialite Ginevra King, he dropped out in 1917 to join the United States Army during World War I. While stationed in Alabama, he met Zelda Sayre, a Southern debutante who belonged to Montgomery's exclusive country-club set. Although she initially rejected Fitzgerald's marriage proposal due to his lack of financial prospects, Zelda agreed to marry him after he published the commercially successful This Side of Paradise (1920). The novel became a cultural sensation and cemented his reputation as one of the eminent writers of the decade.
His second novel, The Beautiful and Damned (1922), propelled him further into the cultural elite. To maintain his affluent lifestyle, he wrote numerous stories for popular magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post, Collier's Weekly, and Esquire. During this period, Fitzgerald frequented Europe, where he befriended modernist writers and artists of the "Lost Generation" expatriate community, including Ernest Hemingway. His third novel, The Great Gatsby (1925), received generally favorable reviews but was a commercial failure, selling fewer than 23,000 copies in its first year. Despite its lackluster debut, The Great Gatsby is now hailed by some literary critics as the "Great American Novel". Following the deterioration of his wife's mental health and her placement in a mental institute for schizophrenia, Fitzgerald completed his final novel, Tender Is the Night (1934).
Struggling financially because of the declining popularity of his works during the Great Depression, Fitzgerald moved to Hollywood, where he embarked upon an unsuccessful career as a screenwriter. While living in Hollywood, he cohabited with columnist Sheilah Graham, his final companion before his death. After a long struggle with alcoholism, he attained sobriety only to die of a heart attack in 1940, at 44. His friend Edmund Wilson edited and published an unfinished fifth novel, The Last Tycoon (1941), after Fitzgerald's death. In 1993, a new edition was published as The Love of the Last Tycoon, edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli.
Born into a middle-class family in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Fitzgerald was raised primarily in New York state. He attended Princeton University where he befriended future literary critic Edmund Wilson. Owing to a failed romantic relationship with Chicago socialite Ginevra King, he dropped out in 1917 to join the United States Army during World War I. While stationed in Alabama, he met Zelda Sayre, a Southern debutante who belonged to Montgomery's exclusive country-club set. Although she initially rejected Fitzgerald's marriage proposal due to his lack of financial prospects, Zelda agreed to marry him after he published the commercially successful This Side of Paradise (1920). The novel became a cultural sensation and cemented his reputation as one of the eminent writers of the decade.
His second novel, The Beautiful and Damned (1922), propelled him further into the cultural elite. To maintain his affluent lifestyle, he wrote numerous stories for popular magazines such as The Saturday Evening Post, Collier's Weekly, and Esquire. During this period, Fitzgerald frequented Europe, where he befriended modernist writers and artists of the "Lost Generation" expatriate community, including Ernest Hemingway. His third novel, The Great Gatsby (1925), received generally favorable reviews but was a commercial failure, selling fewer than 23,000 copies in its first year. Despite its lackluster debut, The Great Gatsby is now hailed by some literary critics as the "Great American Novel". Following the deterioration of his wife's mental health and her placement in a mental institute for schizophrenia, Fitzgerald completed his final novel, Tender Is the Night (1934).
Struggling financially because of the declining popularity of his works during the Great Depression, Fitzgerald moved to Hollywood, where he embarked upon an unsuccessful career as a screenwriter. While living in Hollywood, he cohabited with columnist Sheilah Graham, his final companion before his death. After a long struggle with alcoholism, he attained sobriety only to die of a heart attack in 1940, at 44. His friend Edmund Wilson edited and published an unfinished fifth novel, The Last Tycoon (1941), after Fitzgerald's death. In 1993, a new edition was published as The Love of the Last Tycoon, edited by Matthew J. Bruccoli.
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March 4, 2024It’s a quality picture,” said Stahr with assumed innocence.
It had dawned on them all now, but they still felt there was a trick in it. Stahr really thought it would make money.
“For two years we have played safe,” said Stahr. “It’s time we made a picture that’ll lose some money. Write it off as good will—this will bring in new customers.” …
“It’ll lose money,” he said as he stood up, his jaw just slightly out and his eyes smiling and shining. “It would be a bigger miracle than ‘Hell’s Angels’ if it broke even. But we have a certain duty to the public, as Pat Brady has said at the Academic dinners: It’s a good thing for the production schedule to slip in a picture that’ll lose money.”
Man, if you were a believer you would be investing books instead of pictures. Because God teaches men by means of the Pen if this is a code in the universe, then it would mean that no matter who wrote a book—a good person or a snake—men will be able find the truth if God teaches them. But in ‘pictures’, well, God made no promises about teaching men through pictures. So I guess that’s why the devils have infiltrated that world and have been quite successful even. But they won’t be able to win when to comes to people’s honored pages. The believers will recognize and read what’s in ‘everyone’s minds by reading other peoples ‘honored pages’. So if you are a smart person as I think you are, you would be investing in Pens and Books more. I’m not saying don’t go to making Pictures. I guess that world is also a world to win, but still, any believer will fight for the world of the pens. And right now, wrong books and snake books are taking our spaces—in every world out there. And the Donkeys think they are doing great services to their country and the world by burning actual and real people in the third world countries. I do not mean it metaphorically. I mean it as true. They will lose their souls; their hearts will harden. Their ears will harden until they hang their heads fearing a blow to their eardrums. And there will be no one to soften their hearts or send tingling into their skins with God's words when they are doomed to hell forever. And none of it will happen because some invested in pictures while others in books. it will happen because they just couldn't say 'No' to things that they just gotta say 'No' to because it's damn common-sense even for the idiots.
Some day I might tell you about the four verses that made me give you your book through my righ hand.
December 9, 2015
Potkat se s Gatsbym jsem chtěla už delší dobu a má touha vzrostla poté, co jsem viděla film s nejlepším hercem všech dob — DiCapriem (no fakt, zkuste se podívat třeba na Co žere Gilberta Grapea a budete mi vděkem líbat nárty). Fitzgerald umí hezké věty, příměry, které používá stojí jisto jistě za povšimnutí a zaznamenání. Z jeho strany je to velmi precizní práce, konečně, Posledního magnáta nechal ležet pět let v šuplíku. Já když po pěti letech otevřela šuplík, našla jsem v ní jen starou svačinu. Asi jsou šuplíky a šuplíky.
Ale zpět ke knize, Gatsby se čte náramně, sice víte, jak to skončí, ale kniha vás prostě baví. Má jisté noblesní kouzlo a je za ním cítit snivost. Autor zde vykreslil napudrovaný křehký svět, který šálí smysly. Ale váha takového světa se může kdykoli zbortit jediným vydechnutím.
Z Posledního magnáta mám ale velmi rozporuplné pocity. Postav je tam jak na román, ani na konci knihy jsem si stále nebyla jistá tím, kdo je kdo. Nebudu se tady moc rozepisovat, nebavilo mne to a dočetla jsem to jen proto, abych si mohla připsat čtyřicátou knihu v tomto roce. Bleh!
Ale zpět ke knize, Gatsby se čte náramně, sice víte, jak to skončí, ale kniha vás prostě baví. Má jisté noblesní kouzlo a je za ním cítit snivost. Autor zde vykreslil napudrovaný křehký svět, který šálí smysly. Ale váha takového světa se může kdykoli zbortit jediným vydechnutím.
Z Posledního magnáta mám ale velmi rozporuplné pocity. Postav je tam jak na román, ani na konci knihy jsem si stále nebyla jistá tím, kdo je kdo. Nebudu se tady moc rozepisovat, nebavilo mne to a dočetla jsem to jen proto, abych si mohla připsat čtyřicátou knihu v tomto roce. Bleh!
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February 17, 2023I couldn't find a paperback edition on GR of just The Last Tycoon, but I'm not bothering any more with trying to find it cuz I'm quitting it. It just doesn't seem fair to rate a book that's clearly a first draft. I got to enjoy some of the exciting FSF prose brilliance, but the plot and characters aren't ready for prime time yet and I'm gonna respect the author by not expecting a finished polished work.
November 21, 2019
Too bad Scott didn't live to complete his Hollywood Novel. Some movie folks would have howled.
January 26, 2018
This is Fitzgerald's last work and is incomplete. Unfortunately, he died before he finishing a whole draft, this book has no end and what we do have doesn't work particularly well as a beginning and middle.
The narrator of The Last Tycoon is Cecelia, daughter of a succesful Hollywood movie producer and accustomed to being around movie stars ... Her father's business partner is Monroe Stahr, boy wonder extraordinaire who joined at 25 and wows the industry. Now in his mid-thirties, he's dying of something, probably cancer, which he has kept secret. Cecelia convinces herself that she is in love with him because he is so indifferent to her, and must now contend with an Englishwoman, Kathleen, whom Stahr met and who reminds him of his dead wife Minna, and so has fallen in love with.
My thoughts:
I feel bad criticizing a book that the author wasn't finished with, in a state he had no intention of publishing it in, but there is no use pretending something works when it doesn't. In fact, I think it is nice to see proof that Fitzgerald didn't manufacture masterpieces with ease, it makes the great literature he's given us that much more meaningful a gift to know he crafted it through drafts. But even if it was finished and polished I would still hate it. Hate is a strong emotional response to anything, I know, and I'm saying this because the story is so annoying and the characters so frustrating, a fair number of the scenes are flat, poorly connected to one another, or barely believable. Moreover, when you are reading Cecelia's first-person narration, it feels good and right. When you are reading Stahr's third-person narrative, it feels good and right. But mixing them together, and having Cecelia occasionally intrude with "but I wasn't there" and "this is how it was told to me" etc. made me want to strangle the bloody book.
WARNING : DO NOT BOTHER READING THE BOOK.
The narrator of The Last Tycoon is Cecelia, daughter of a succesful Hollywood movie producer and accustomed to being around movie stars ... Her father's business partner is Monroe Stahr, boy wonder extraordinaire who joined at 25 and wows the industry. Now in his mid-thirties, he's dying of something, probably cancer, which he has kept secret. Cecelia convinces herself that she is in love with him because he is so indifferent to her, and must now contend with an Englishwoman, Kathleen, whom Stahr met and who reminds him of his dead wife Minna, and so has fallen in love with.
My thoughts:
I feel bad criticizing a book that the author wasn't finished with, in a state he had no intention of publishing it in, but there is no use pretending something works when it doesn't. In fact, I think it is nice to see proof that Fitzgerald didn't manufacture masterpieces with ease, it makes the great literature he's given us that much more meaningful a gift to know he crafted it through drafts. But even if it was finished and polished I would still hate it. Hate is a strong emotional response to anything, I know, and I'm saying this because the story is so annoying and the characters so frustrating, a fair number of the scenes are flat, poorly connected to one another, or barely believable. Moreover, when you are reading Cecelia's first-person narration, it feels good and right. When you are reading Stahr's third-person narrative, it feels good and right. But mixing them together, and having Cecelia occasionally intrude with "but I wasn't there" and "this is how it was told to me" etc. made me want to strangle the bloody book.
WARNING : DO NOT BOTHER READING THE BOOK.
October 22, 2024
Celkové hodnocení jsem zprůměrovala, mimochodem :D
Velký Gatsby mě dostal. Přečetla jsem ho v pohodě za jeden den a bavil mě, chtěla jsem vědět, co bude dál. Kromě toho měl krásnou myšlenku a moc pěkné slovní obraty.
Poslední magnát byl pro mě hůř stravitelný. Ne zrovna málo často jsem se trochu ztrácela v ději, postavách nebo souvislostech a občas mi dělalo problém pochopit, co se čím vlastně snažil říct. Přece jen jde trochu poznat, že je to příběh, který neprošel všemi úpravami. Nicméně nádherná práce se slovy mě udivovala i tady a pořád si myslím, že jde o kvalitní čtení.
Velký Gatsby mě dostal. Přečetla jsem ho v pohodě za jeden den a bavil mě, chtěla jsem vědět, co bude dál. Kromě toho měl krásnou myšlenku a moc pěkné slovní obraty.
Poslední magnát byl pro mě hůř stravitelný. Ne zrovna málo často jsem se trochu ztrácela v ději, postavách nebo souvislostech a občas mi dělalo problém pochopit, co se čím vlastně snažil říct. Přece jen jde trochu poznat, že je to příběh, který neprošel všemi úpravami. Nicméně nádherná práce se slovy mě udivovala i tady a pořád si myslím, že jde o kvalitní čtení.
August 15, 2024
I liked it….so much more than when I first read it, ? 20 years ago. 😊
May 18, 2025
You can see how it could have been pretty good. Certainly the notes on reconstruction require the editor to commit to interpretations of intention. The multiple points of view anticipate the wider use of this in post WW2 fiction.
Read with Queer People and The Day of the Locust the three paint a great picture of the Hollywood in its studio heyday
Read with Queer People and The Day of the Locust the three paint a great picture of the Hollywood in its studio heyday
November 14, 2023
If only He had one more year. One more year to finish this beautiful, charming promising story. You get to chapter six with a heavy heart, almost with a chilling feeling, knowing he passed away while writing possibly one of his greatest works.
I could picture clearly in my head all of these stunning scenes, the clothes, the 30s Hollywood style reflected in the characters.
Even if it’s incomplete and forever will be, the notes give you an idea of where he was planning the story to go, making you dream just like with Gatsby.
It’s such a shame we’ll never know how it ends.
“They were smiling at each other as if this was the beginning of the world”
I could picture clearly in my head all of these stunning scenes, the clothes, the 30s Hollywood style reflected in the characters.
Even if it’s incomplete and forever will be, the notes give you an idea of where he was planning the story to go, making you dream just like with Gatsby.
It’s such a shame we’ll never know how it ends.
“They were smiling at each other as if this was the beginning of the world”
April 13, 2025
I enjoyed The Great Gatsby very much. Extremely interesting characters with interesting sub plots and interesting symbolism about the American Dream and the lies that that phrase encompasses. The Last Tycoon felt dull to me. Similar to TGG I enjoyed the telling of the underbelly of Hollywood and Stahr’s struggle to balance his personal life in his career. However, I didn’t enjoy this as much as the great Gatsby. It felt like a drag really.
June 19, 2019
Okay, technically I own a beautiful leather-bound edition by the International Collectors Library and edited by Edmund Wilson, but I can't find that on goodreads, so this will have to do.
This story is interesting, but clearly unfinished. And the part on the airplane with the sleeping berths was, frankly, confusing.
The best part of this book is all of the notes at the back, including a chart of how F. Scott Fitzgerald outlined the book.
This story is interesting, but clearly unfinished. And the part on the airplane with the sleeping berths was, frankly, confusing.
The best part of this book is all of the notes at the back, including a chart of how F. Scott Fitzgerald outlined the book.
September 27, 2022
The edition I have was just The Last Tycoon (I've read The Great Gatsby separately). What exists of the book, however unfinished, was still brilliant - I imagine I would have loved the finished article.
It was interesting reading something still 'under construction', with notes and plans from the author as to how it was supposed to go, what he wasn't satisfied with e.t.c. His thought process seems a bit chaotic to me, but it clearly worked.
It was interesting reading something still 'under construction', with notes and plans from the author as to how it was supposed to go, what he wasn't satisfied with e.t.c. His thought process seems a bit chaotic to me, but it clearly worked.
December 31, 2017
"I like people and I like them to like me, but i wear my heart where God put it-on the inside... "
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September 27, 2018A number of brilliant passages here. The book made me look back to Irving Thalberg, whose gifts to a hollywood were many.
November 8, 2016
I finished reading it, but he didn't finish writing it. He died before he was halfway through his plans for the book. Still, what we have is immensely entertaining, full of inside info on the way Hollywood functioned in the mid-30s, and some typically Fitzgeraldian male/female interaction. I became swept up in the narrative to the point that even though I knew the dead stop was coming, I gasped when I got there. The summaries of his plot ideas, and notes he had made on characters and incidents were pretty fascinating. I realized I had very little insight into the methodology of novel writers until now. Obviously, they couldn't just start at the beginning and work their way through, but I hadn't seen raw notes before. It occurs to me I still have several Fitzgerald works to get to some day.
May 31, 2017
This book validates a lot of what I say when teaching The Great Gatsby--Fitzgerald shows how deeply he thinks about why a scene plays out in particular ways through notes that appear along with a sketched outline. Unfortunately, we will never know what the novel would have looked like had he lived to finish it, but I find the story well worth reading in the form we have it. No Steinbeck, Fitzgerald does at least show more direct concern for the lives of poorer Americans through his noble "tycoon," Monroe Stahr. Even so, the "paternalistic employer" falls into Fitzgerald's set patterns in that it centers on a sort of tragic mensch. I also have a hard time reading the romances of this book as romanticized versions of the author's pale imitations of love in the wake of his life with Zelda.
March 21, 2025
Rating: 2,5. No passado nunca tive a oportunidade de ler este livro de Scott Fitzgerald (The Last Tycoon). Fi-lo agora impelido por um ímpeto inexplicável pois na verdade não apreciei particularmente os outros livros que dele li. Arrependi-me pois não só não é melhor do que os outros como sobretudo é um romance críptico e inacabado. Não é que eu tenha alguma coisa contra os romances crípticos e inacabados; basta pensar nos romances de Kafka que são todos eles inacabados e crípticos. Mas, por razões óbvias, a comparação é inapropriada
October 20, 2019
Fascinating look at F. Scott Fitzgerald's writing process. Included are completed first drafts of the opening 6 chapters, author's synopsis of the rest of the book, author character sketches and notes concerning mood and plot point possibilities. Crafted, polished and reworked, it would no doubt have been a superb Hollywood novel. There's plenty to admire already as it stands, frozen in time by Fitzgerald's fatal heart attack.
April 10, 2018
Having read the Great Gatsby before, I just jumped ahead to the second work in the book, The Last tycoon, and found myself absolutely enthralled. However, it was only when I got the the end of the what was completely that I found myself sad that is wasn't able to be fully realized by Fitzgerald. I look forward to reading more of his works and then revisiting both of theses works.
July 17, 2018
Obecně se mi kniha líbila, nicméně se nejednalo o "lehké čtení". Na Gatsbym se mi líbila jeho naděje a jeho ochota udělat vše pro to, aby získal to, co chce. Zároveň mi díky smutnému konci a snad i gatsbymu špatnému výběru partnera přišel příběh velmi reálný. Zajímavý byl taktéž kontrast Gatsbyho s Daisy, která na rozdíl od něj není schopná postavit se za to, co snad i skutečně chce.
November 12, 2023
"Knowledge is power."
This wasn't a Fitzgerald novel I was even aware of, but it came in a box set that I picked up at the Friends of the Florida Library Sale.
Apparently, it's loosely based off one of the guys who founded MGM? I think that's what I discovered when I looked up what the novel was about. And that's pretty wild.
This wasn't a Fitzgerald novel I was even aware of, but it came in a box set that I picked up at the Friends of the Florida Library Sale.
Apparently, it's loosely based off one of the guys who founded MGM? I think that's what I discovered when I looked up what the novel was about. And that's pretty wild.
August 8, 2018
Though two titles are selected here, I read only the Last Tycoon.
It was a good read, no pun intended. I don't read much for pleasure (too busy writing) and this provided a nice break in the action.
No spoiler details, though it's an unfinished work.
It was a good read, no pun intended. I don't read much for pleasure (too busy writing) and this provided a nice break in the action.
No spoiler details, though it's an unfinished work.
September 14, 2018
I didn't realise this was unfinished, though I wasn't too sad not to know where the characters ended up. Interesting as a portrait of Hollywood, and its hollowness, but none of the characters were particularly likeable.
December 31, 2020
It’s was pretty cool to see Hollywood in the “golden age” in this book but the overall plot was pretty unforgettable. Had he been able to finish the book before he died, perhaps the ending would have been more satisfying
March 19, 2018
Did not finish. Boring
June 30, 2020
Read in 1975. Head of a movie studio falls in love.
February 17, 2024
Jestli sem neco cekala od teto knizky, tak toto ne
a daisy je pekna svine
a daisy je pekna svine
May 13, 2024
scotty got me with this one. fabulous.
July 22, 2024
3 ☆ za Posledního magnáta. Někde moc utahané, někde zase moc hopskok. Zato Gatsby byl jiná pohádka 😌🫶🏻
4,5 ☆ za Gatsbyho
Omw koupit si pozlacené speciální vydání v Luxoru na Václaváku 😚🤭
4,5 ☆ za Gatsbyho
Omw koupit si pozlacené speciální vydání v Luxoru na Václaváku 😚🤭
January 6, 2025
Hard to rate since an incomplete story due to author’s death. But I liked what was written.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 50 reviews