Fitzgerald, F. Scott

The Great Gatsby: A Play By Owen Davis from Scott Fitzgerald's Novel. [New York: 1926]

106 pp. (11 x 8 1/2 ins; 280  x 115 mm).  Carbon typescript  manuscript of the stage adaptation with pencil edits cutting pages of dialogue in acts 1 and 2; minor toning to edges, few corners creased.

Tate p. 102

Gatsby takes Broadway and provides the basis for a lost film. Owen Davis adapted the novel for the stage production, with the play opening to postive reviews and strong attendance at the Ambassador Theatre on 2 February 1926. Directed by George Cukor, it ran for 122 performances and starred James Rennie in the role of Gatsby, Edward Wever as Nick Carraway and Florence Eldridge as Daisy Buchanan. Fitzgerald received $7,630 for the stage rights and a further $16,666 for movie rights for this adaptation. . No copies of the 1926 silent  film are known to have survived, making the present an potentially important record of early film history as well as the first of many dramatic versions of Gatsby.