"For Christ's sake don’t give anyone that jacket you're saving for me. I've written it into the book."
— F. Scott Fitzgerald to editor Max Perkins, regarding the original cover art for The Great Gatsby, published on this day in 1925
From Today in Literature this morning:
"Although little is know about the artist, Francis Cugat — he was a brother of the band leader Xavier Cugat — and no other book art has been attributed to him, the cover he did for The Great Gatsby is one of the most famous in modern literature. The scholars debate at what point Fitzgerald saw it and how he might have "written it into the book," but you can read Charles Scribner III's discussion of the facts here, and see a handful of other preliminary sketches by Cugat. The sketch at right, above, is the penultimate version of the cover, before the nudes went into the eyes and the New York skyline moved closer to Coney Island."