The Penguin Classics edition, introduction by Min Jin Lee
The novel with notes by Philip McGowan and an introduction by Min Jin Lee.
A hundred years on, many of the references need a note, and the book’s blind spots deserve an introduction that names them.
You want to read it properly, with the slang and the places explained, and an introduction that argues with it a little.
What it keeps and what it changes
Keeps: the whole novel.
Changes: what you can look up as you go: Philip McGowan’s notes, and Min Jin Lee’s introduction on how gender, race, class and sexuality complicate the book’s American Dream.
Whose story is it?
Nick’s, with an introduction that asks who he leaves out.
How much time does it ask?
240 pages in the Penguin Classics Deluxe paperback, published January 2021.
Penguin Classics: introduction by Min Jin Lee, edited with notes by Philip McGowan.
Where to find it
Buy the paperback — Bookshop.org
Other ways to get it: Paperback — Amazon · Ebook — Kobo · Kindle — Amazon
Borrow it free: Borrow on Libby · Find at your library — WorldCat
More ways into West Egg: The Scribner paperback (“The Only Authorized Edition”) · The Norton Critical Edition, ed. David Alworth · The Cambridge Edition, ed. Matthew J. Bruccoli