Video: First edition of The Great Gatsby to be auctioned in New York Offered by an unidentified North Carolina collector, the first edition of the "Great American Novel" is estimated to sell for between $100,000 to $150,000 (£65,000 - £98,000) when it is auctioned on June 11. With a rare Art Deco-style dust jacket in very good condition, the book once belonged to critic and novelist Malcolm Cowley and contains his handwriting in the margins and title pages, transcribing corrections found in Fitzgerald's own copy. Fitzgerald's book is in the Princeton University collection. Sotheby's head of books Richard Austin described the book as the "closest anyone's going to be able to get to actually owning Fitzgerald's own copy." The 1925 novel tells the story of millionaire Jay Gatsby's passion for the effervescent Daisy Buchanan and was recently adapted for the silver screen by director Baz Luhrmann.