Reading Gatsby in 2026 with H. L. Mencken
Read Mencken's 1925 response to The Great Gatsby beside the novel. Follow the original text, separate praise from criticism and try a close-reading exercise.
Last updated October 2026
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H. L. Mencken admired the writing of The Great Gatsby while questioning the weight of its story and the depth of its people. Reading those judgments together makes his response more useful than a single dismissive phrase. It gives you a question to test against the novel: can the way a story is told change what that story means?
This guide leads to a transcription of Mencken's review and a free edition of Fitzgerald's novel. It then offers a reading exercise to try on your own or with a group. The exercise is ours; it is not part of the historical review.
Start with Mencken's whole argument, then return to one passage of the novel. Keep his praise for the prose separate from his other judgments. Look for evidence that supports or challenges each one. This is an independent reading companion, not a reproduction of the review or an official newspaper archive. The linked transcription identifies its printed source so you can follow its provenance.
Find H. L. Mencken's review and check its source
Read the transcription of Mencken's review on a third-party Fitzgerald site. Its source note identifies the Baltimore Evening Sun in 1925 and Alfred Kazin's edited collection F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Man and His Work (1951), from which the text was scanned. It is a later transcription, not an image of the original newspaper. Visible joined words in the transcription are another reason to check a printed copy before quoting it in formal work.
Royal Holloway's Gatsby teaching resource identifies Mencken's review in the Chicago Sunday Tribune on May 3, 1925. It places the review among readings for students. These source descriptions appear to refer to different newspaper appearances; do not silently turn the transcription's source note into a claim that you have inspected the Tribune page.
For the novel, use Project Gutenberg's edition of The Great Gatsby. The landing page provides reading and download formats and a rights notice. Its public-domain statement concerns the United States. Check the rules where you are before copying or distributing an edition.
What H. L. Mencken praises and questions
Mencken calls the plot a “glorified anecdote,” questions its importance and finds most characters insufficiently developed. Yet he praises Fitzgerald's prose and the care behind it. He also recognizes the book's attention to wealthy American life. His response combines reservations with admiration; calling it simply a rejection misses that tension.
Treat those judgments as a starting point for discussion, rather than a verdict you must accept. The rest of this guide asks you to develop your own account of the novel. You can disagree with a critic and still use the critic's questions to read more closely.
Close reading: Nick meets Gatsby
Use chapter three, where Nick attends a party and speaks with Gatsby. Read the passage once for events. Note who speaks and what Nick knows at that moment. Mark the point at which he learns who his companion is.
Write a short account that sticks to what happens. Leave out any judgment about Gatsby's character for now. You can return to that once you have the order of events clear.
Read it again for the telling. Mark a detail about the party, a detail about Gatsby and a phrase that reveals Nick's response. Decide which details give the reader facts and which prompt a feeling. A character can seem vivid yet remain hard to understand. Explain whether that difference matters here.
Then ask what would disappear if you reduced the encounter to a plot summary. Your answer need not praise every sentence. It should name one thing the prose does that a bare account of the event would fail to do. That gives you evidence for discussing how style and story work together.
A notebook exercise for a reading group
Make a heading in your notes for events. Add a heading for people and one for telling. Use the same passage under each heading. Keeping the passage fixed makes the comparison fair: you are asking different questions of the same evidence, rather than choosing a new scene whenever an argument becomes difficult.
- Events: explain what changes during the encounter. Compare what Nick knows at the start with what he knows at the end.
- People: identify one claim Nick makes about Gatsby. Decide whether the scene lets you check it or asks you to trust Nick.
- Telling: choose a sentence whose rhythm, image or point of view affects your response. Describe that effect in ordinary words.
Now write a brief answer to your opening question. Does the way this scene is told change its meaning? Refer to a precise detail, then explain why it matters. A phrase copied without explanation is evidence waiting for an argument; it is not the argument itself.
If you are reading with others, exchange notes before discussing the whole novel. Find one place where two readers notice the same detail but read it differently. State both readings fairly. Choose another passage that could help you weigh them. You may finish with a better question rather than a settled answer.
A model note to challenge
Here is one possible response to the chapter-three exercise: Nick's account of Gatsby's smile makes Gatsby seem to offer a rare kind of attention. Yet the reader receives that impression through Nick. The passage gives us a strong sense of being won over, without giving us direct access to Gatsby's thoughts.
That is an interpretation to test, not a fact you have to repeat. Return to the scene and find the words that could support it. Then look for a detail that makes it less secure. Gatsby's speech or his change of manner may lead you to revise the note. A useful reading can survive a correction; it need not explain every part of the scene at once.
Now turn the note into an argument about form. If Nick's limited view matters, then the gap between an impression and a fact may be part of the story's design. On that reading, uncertainty about Gatsby is something the novel asks us to experience. On another reading, the scene may leave you wanting more access to the person behind the effect.
Both routes need evidence. Do not choose the first because it sounds more generous to Fitzgerald, or the second because a famous critic makes you doubt the book. Explain what you notice and what it lets you claim. Leave room for a later scene to change your mind.
For a short group activity, let one reader defend each view using the same passage. Each person should state the other view before answering it. The purpose is to make the disagreement clear, so that the group can decide which details carry the most weight.
Keep the critic apart from the narrator
When you write about the passage, label whose claim you are discussing. Mencken evaluates the novel. Nick tells the story. Fitzgerald creates the work in which Nick tells it. Moving between those levels without saying so can make an argument appear stronger than its evidence allows.
Try revising one sentence of your notes. Replace “Fitzgerald thinks” with a more exact description of what you can show: “Nick describes,” “the scene presents” or “Mencken argues.” The revision may reveal that you need another passage before making a claim about the novel as a whole.
The same care applies to dates and editions. A review written near a book's publication is evidence of that reviewer's response. It does not speak for every contemporary reader. A later transcription makes a historical text easier to reach, but it still has an editorial history of its own.
Verdict: read the disagreement, then test it
Read H. L. Mencken's linked review before choosing one of its judgments to discuss. Then return to Fitzgerald's text with a clear question and a passage small enough to study closely. Keep a note of the edition and chapter you use, since page numbers vary between editions.
For a next step, repeat the exercise with a later scene and compare your notes. Track how your account of Gatsby changes as Nick's story unfolds. Our American literature guide places the novel in a wider reading route, while the Classics collection offers other books to read with the same care for how a narrator presents evidence.