# Is "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (Charles Scribner's Sons, 1925) is identified by: First printing (Charles Scribner's Sons, April 1925). US Scribner's (April 1925) is the true first; the UK Chatto & Windus edition (1926) is collected but follows a year later and is a distant second.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- First printing (Charles Scribner's Sons, April 1925)
- The copyright page shows the Scribner's Press seal (colophon) and the line 'Published April, 1925' — there is NO letter 'A' (Scribner's did not use the 'A' first-printing device until 1930, so an 'A' is a red flag for a later printing)
- The first printing is identified by uncorrected text points, all later corrected: p.60 line 16 'chatter' (later reset to 'echolalia'); p.119 line 22 'northern' (later 'southern'); p.205 lines 9–10 'sick in tired' (later 'sick and tired'); p.211 lines 7–8 'Union Street station' (later 'Union Station')
- A copy reading 'echolalia' at p.60 is a later printing, not a first
- Publisher imprint reads Charles Scribner's Sons
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | F. Scott Fitzgerald |
| Publisher | Charles Scribner's Sons |
| Year | 1925 |
| True first | US edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | First printing (Charles Scribner's Sons, April 1925) |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
First printing (Charles Scribner's Sons, April 1925). The copyright page shows the Scribner's Press seal (colophon) and the line 'Published April, 1925' — there is NO letter 'A' (Scribner's did not use the 'A' first-printing device until 1930, so an 'A' is a red flag for a later printing). The first printing is identified by uncorrected text points, all later corrected: p.60 line 16 'chatter' (later reset to 'echolalia'); p.119 line 22 'northern' (later 'southern'); p.205 lines 9–10 'sick in tired' (later 'sick and tired'); p.211 lines 7–8 'Union Street station' (later 'Union Station'). A copy reading 'echolalia' at p.60 is a later printing, not a first.

## Is this the true first?
US Scribner's (April 1925) is the true first; the UK Chatto & Windus edition (1926) is collected but follows a year later and is a distant second. The Francis Cugat 'Celestial Eyes' dust jacket is the paramount point: its earliest state has 'jay Gatsby' with a lowercase 'j' in the blurb on the REAR panel (many copies were hand-corrected to a capital 'J' in ink — a second state; a still-later state adds review excerpts to the back panel and flaps). There was no signed or limited issue of the 1925 first.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No legitimate book-club edition of the 1925 first exists; later Scribner's printings silently correct the text points. The most common trap is a FACSIMILE or 'married' dust jacket placed on a first- or later-printing book, since the jacket carries most of the value. Later reprints — such as the Modern Library and the UK Grey Walls Press editions — are sometimes offered as the 1925 first; verify by the uncorrected text points inside the book, not by the jacket alone.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *The Great Gatsby* by F. Scott Fitzgerald a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/the-great-gatsby
CC BY 4.0. Part of the Canonical First-Edition Points of Issue dataset (https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/api/first-edition-titles.json). Last reviewed 2026-07-04.