One Book Community Read: The Great Gatsby: Themes & Research

The period following World War I was an era of widespread prosperity in the United States. Long Island, New York, became the playground of the privileged, exemplifying the excesses of the Jazz Age. This video investigates how the concept of the American Dream inspired and influenced F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel ‘The Great Gatsby’. It provides a valuable accompaniment to students studying this text.

This overview of the biography and writing of F. Scott Fitzgerald from the Famous Authors series traces Fitzgerald’s life and influences—from his birth in St. Paul, Minnesota, to his university days at Princeton, literary celebrity, and frivolity in New York; to his status as social purveyor of modernists in Paris; to his tumultuous marriage to the talented but troubled Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald and following alcoholic spiral.

The summer Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald met a mystery millionaire who threw extravagant parties inspired one of the world’s most beloved novels: The Great Gatsby. Discover the untold story of the real-life Jay Gatsby himself.

Celebrates the 75th anniversary of the publication of The Great Gatsby, literature's greatest embodiment of the American Dream and the American nightmare. The Great Gatsby is F Scott Fitzgerald's masterpiece. Like no other novel, it captures the reckless pleasure seeking and exuberance of 1920s New York at the height of economic boom, a period Fitzgerald famously christened 'The Jazz Age'.

Conventional wisdom enshrines the 1920s as the decade that roared—a time in which Americans kicked up their heels to the Charleston and went for one long joyride before the Wall Street crash of 1929. As this Bill Moyers program illustrates, those things did happen, but so did many others—not all of them fondly remembered.

A study and celebration of America’s greatest original art form, Ken Burns’s ten-part documentary series opens at the dawn of the 20th century and crosses the decades with the exuberance and expressive power of jazz itself. Each episode sheds light on cultural and historical milestones as it introduces viewers to the unforgettable names and accomplishments of the music.