The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald, F. Scott.

First edition thus, first impression, designated the first UK edition by Fitzgerald's bibliographer. The work first appeared in England, issued by Chatto & Windus using the original American plates, in 1926. This Grey Walls Press publication is entirely reset and therefore constitutes the true first UK edition, significant for marking the resurrection of British interest in an American classic that was almost forgotten. In 1940, Fitzgerald died believing his commercially unsuccessful magnum opus of 1925 had fallen into obscurity forever. The Grey Walls Press led the UK revival of Fitzgerald in the 1940s, following his posthumous designation in America as among the all-time great American novelists, and The Great Gatsby as perhaps the defining cultural artefact of the Jazz Age. The Grey Walls Press was founded in 1940 by the poet and editor of Poetry Quarterly, Charles Wrey Gardiner (1901-1981), in Billericay, Essex. Its operations ceased in 1954. Bruccoli A11.7. Octavo. Original green cloth, spine lettered in gilt. With dust jacket by George Woodman. Edges and outer leaves foxed, contents mostly unaffected; jacket price-clipped, spine mildly toned, else bright, ends and corners nicked: a very good copy in like jacket.