The five minute guide to 'The Great Gatsby', a century on from its publication

On April 10, 1925, Charles Scribner’s Sons published the latest novel by Francis Scott Fitzgerald. It sold poorly that year, but, in the following century, it went on to become a cornerstone of world literature: The Great Gatsby. Almost on its centenary to a day, on April 11, the musical version has its West End premiere, about a year after its Broadway debut. Despite mixed reviews across the Atlantic, this — together with the book’s anniversary — has renewed attention on the Jazz Age Scott Fitzgerald so vividly portrayed.

1. The end of the First World War and the return to prosperity and international travel fuelled a boom in fashion, design, jewellery, the decorative arts and architecture in early-1920s America. Floral motifs abounded in the first half of the decade, later replaced by geometric ones and a fascination with speed, but other notable influences included (despite persistent racism) African art, which went hand in hand with the rise of jazz, and ancient Egyptian culture.
2. Glamour, innovation, exquisite craftsmanship and opulent materials became the byword for the age. A notable example was Cartier’s series of mystery clocks. Although invented in 1912 (a 1914 version of the original Model A can be viewed at the V&A exhibition devoted to the French maison; ‘Sparkling society’, March 26), they became particularly ornate in the 1920s, with gemstone or gold hands that seemed to float against a glass or crystal disc and elaborate bases, such as a carvedjade elephant or a Shinto temple.
3. Although ‘Avantgarde shapes, radical theory, and brazen combinations of colour and decoration… beckoned those who wanted to experiment with a new way of life,’ as Sarah Coffin writes in The Jazz Age: American style in the 1920s, an interest in antiques rivalled the Modernist wave. Gatsby’s own house was stuffed with antiques: Marie Antoinette music rooms and Restoration salons, the ‘Merton College Library’ and Gatsby’s Adam study.
4. Cars came of age in the 1920s and they feature prominently in Scott Fitzgerald’s book, with Jay Gatsby driving a ‘rich cream’ Rolls-Royce of ‘monstrous length’. In the 1974 film version, Robert Redford had a 1928 Phantom I Ascot Sport Phaeton (pictured), which was sold at auction in 2009 for $238,000 and again in 2022, when it fetched $967,500.
5. Changes in women’s lifestyle sparked demand for unstructured clothes with shorter hemlines, French-inspired accessories, from cigarette holders to perfume bottles, and jewellery — not least head-pieces that showed off newly cropped hair. When Nick Carraway first arrived at Tom Buchanan’s house and met his cousin Daisy and her friend Jordan Baker: ‘They were both in white, and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house.’ Gatsby’s death would quell that floaty illusion, just as the Great Depression would put an end to the spirit of the Jazz Age.