《了不起的盖茨比》以20世纪20年代生活在纽约市及长岛的中上层社会为背景，以穷小子尼克的视角出发，讲述了盖茨比历尽艰辛不择手段地攫取财富，最终从一个穷光蛋变成“了不起”的富豪，以及他与初恋时因贫穷而失去的情人黛西之间的情感纠葛。盖茨比对名车豪宅、奢靡派对充满了狂热的喜爱，他疯狂的享乐主义和对财富不择手段的追逐，折射了当时社会普通的的躁动情绪和道德倒退。而黛西对他情感的态度同时也揭露了当时残酷的社会现实，揭示了“美国梦”的破灭。
　　本书一经出版便获得高度评价，村上春树、海明威、和艾略特等著名作家都给予了该书极高的评价。

★美国文学史上的经典之作
★唱响了“爵士时代”的哀哀挽歌

Chapter 1
IN MY YOUNGERand more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turningover in my mind ever since.
‘Wheneveryou feel like criticising anyone,’ he told me, ‘just remember that all thepeople in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.’
Hedidn’t say any more, but we’ve always been unusually communicative in areserved way, and I understood that he meant a great deal more than that. Inconsequence, I’m inclined to reserve all judgements, a habit that has opened upmany curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteranbores. The abnormal mind is quick to detect and attach itself to this qualitywhen it appears in a normal person, and so it came about that in college I wasunjustly accused of being a politician, because I was privy to the secret griefof wild, unknown men. Most of the confidences were unsought — frequently I havefeigned sleep, preoccupation or a hostile levity when I realized by someunmistakable sign that an intimate revelation was quivering on the horizon; forthe intimate revelations of young men, or at least the terms in which theyexpress them, are usually plagiaristic and marred by obvious suppressions.Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope. I am still a little afraid ofmissing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested, and Isnobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental decencies is parcelled outunequally at birth.