The Great Gatsby

F. Scott Fitzgerald's portrait of the Jazz Age in all its decadence and excess is, as editor Maxwell Perkins praised it in 1924, "a wonder." It remains one of the most widely read, translated, admired, imitated, and studied twentieth-century works of American fiction. This deceptively simple work, Fitzgerald's best-known, was hailed by critics as capturing the spirit of the generation. In Jay Gatsby, Fitzgerald embodies some of America's strongest obsessions: wealth, power, greed, and the promise of new beginnings. The recording includes a selection of letters written by Fitzgerald to his editor, Maxwell Perkins, his agent, Harold Ober, and friends and associates, including Willa Cather, H.L. Mencken, John Peale Bisho,p and Gertrude Stein.