Toward the end of his life, F. Scott Fitzgerald, consumed by thoughts of inadequacy and convinced he was a “has-been,” wrote to his editor Max Perkins asking if his old book The Great Gatsby was simply destined to be unpopular. The novel, published in 1925, had initially sold modestly and then barely at all: A reprint of 3,000 copies floated around for 16 years. Fitzgerald was writing from Hollywood, surviving on minor screenwriting gigs and some cheap Esquire stories, and he was convinced that, after less than two decades, his big book was a bust.
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