Charles Scribner Pens Letter to Editor Over 'Gatsby' Hollywood Book Cover

Is it slightly embarrassing to tote around a Great Gatsby book with Leonardo DiCaprio on the cover? For some book lovers, apparently, it could be. 

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But Charles Scribner V, heir to the Scribner family, which originally published the F. Scott Fitzgerald classic, doesn't mind the movie tie-in of Gatsby.

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As noted by one of the newspaper's reporters, Scribner penned a letter to the editor in reply to a New York Times article about Gatsby's movie-tie in cover.

The article aired observations and criticisms from booksellers about the cover, inspired by the Baz Luhrmann 3D film adaptation.

A particularly scathing quote from a bookseller at the independent McNally Jackson store noted to the newspaper: "I think it would bring shame ... to anyone who was trying to read that book on the subway."

Scribner, however, replied that he doesn't mind the cover at all.

In a letter to the Times that he deemed to be a "historical note," he explained that even the now-revered original "celestial eyes" cover of the book had "disappeared" for decades after Fitzgerald's death.

And he conceded: "Yet I confess to liking the Leonardo DiCaprio cover, too (the new movie tie-in). I would not be ashamed to be seen reading it on the subway, but then I’m a Gemini."

Gatsby, featuring DiCaprio, Carey Mulligan and Tobey Maguire, hits U.S. theaters on May 10.