In what year is The Great Gatsby set?

The Great Gatsby is set in 1922. Nick Carraway arrives in the New York area in the spring of that year, settling in West Egg and beginning work as a bond salesman. The novel’s events unfold during the summer, when he becomes involved with Jay Gatsby, Daisy Buchanan, Tom Buchanan, and Jordan Baker.

The year places the story firmly in the Jazz Age, the period of cultural experimentation and economic expansion that followed World War I. It is also the era of Prohibition, when alcohol was legally banned in the United States, helping explain the atmosphere of secretive wealth and Gatsby’s suspicious business dealings.

A common mix-up is 1925, the year Fitzgerald’s novel was published. The narrative itself takes place three years earlier. The story’s 1922 setting also matters because it captures postwar disillusionment, conspicuous consumption, and the social divide between established wealth and newly acquired fortunes.