Jay Gatsby is the man who has everything. But one thing will always be out of his reach. Everybody who is anybody is seen at his glittering parties. Day and night his Long Island mansion buzzes with bright young things drinking, dancing, and debating his mysterious character. For Gatsby---young, handsome, and fabulously rich---always seems alone in the crowd, watching and waiting, though no one knows what for.

When F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby in the early 1920s, the American Dream was already on the skids. Originally based on the idea that the pursuit of happiness involves not only material success but moral and spiritual growth, the dream had by Fitzgerald's time become increasingly focused on money and pleasure - a phenomenon the high-living writer was only too familiar with.

The mysterious Jay Gatsby embodies the American notion that it is possible to redefine oneself and persuade the world to accept that definition. Gatsby's youthful neighbor, Nick Carraway, fascinated with the display of enormous wealth in which Gatsby revels, finds himself swept up in the lavish lifestyle of Long Island society during the Jazz Age.

Jay Gatsby is still in love with Daisy, whom he met during the war when he was penniless. Having made himself wealthy through illegal means, he now lives in a mansion across the bay from the home of Daisy Buchanan, who has since married for money. Holding on to his illusion of Daisy as perfect, he seeks to impress her with his wealth, and uses his new neighbor, Nick Carraway, (our narrator), to reach her.

No one fictional or factual embodies the Jazz Age as completely as F. Scott Fitzgerald's Jay Gatsby. First published in 1925, this legendary novel continues to enthrall generations as it serves as a lens to view our not so distant past. Many of our notions about that period are taken from the pages of this book. Bathtub gin, flappers, and house parties that last all week enliven Fitzgerald's classic tale.

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 20th-century works of American fiction.

Feel the texture of Fitzgerald's language as master reader Alexander Scourby, with cool precision, unfolds the mystery of Jay Gatsby. A true classic of American literature, The Great Gatsby celebrates a "heightened sensibility to the promises of life," an American capacity for hope that remains unsullied even by the falsity of what it pursues. Fitzgerald's clean, elegant style evokes to perfection the glitter and charm of the Jazz Age, as well as the falseness of its values.

How does F. Scott Fitzgerald's immensely popular, compact novel capture the essence of the American Dream? We travel from the tony suburbs of New York to the Midwest and back again to find out.

We explore F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and find out how the compact novel became an American icon. Novelist Jonathan Franzen tells us why he still reads it every year or two, and writer Patricia Hampl explains why its lightness is deceptive. We'll drive around the tony Long Island suburbs where Gatsby was set, and Azar Nafisi describes teaching the book to university students in Tehran.

We begin by marking a September literary birthday, F. Scott Fitzgerald, one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. Fitzgerald shows us the reverse side of the glamorous roaring twenties and nowhere is this truer than in his masterpiece, The Great Gatsby. We listen to A+ Audio Study Guide to The Great Gatsby, an innovative guide series that really helps you better appreciate and enjoy great literature.