ational Endowment for the
READER'S GUIDE
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F. SCOTT FITZGERALD'S
The Great
Gatsby
"What little I've accomplished
has been by the most laborious
and uphill work, and I wish I'd
never relaxed or looked back —
but said at the end of The Great
Gatsby: Tve found my line — from
now on this comes first-This is
my immediate duty— without
this I am nothing.' "
— F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
from a letter to his daughter, Scottie
Preface
The Great Gatsby may be the most popular classic in modern American
fiction. Since its publication in 1925, Fitzgerald's masterpiece has become a
touchstone for generations of readers and writers, many of whom reread it
every few years as a ritual of imaginative renewal.The story of Jay Gatsby's
desperate quest to win back his first love reverberates with themes at once
characteristically American and universally human, among them the
importance of honesty, the temptations of wealth, and the struggle to
escape the past. Though The Great Gatsby runs to fewer than two hundred
pages, there is no bigger read in American literature.
The Big Read is an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts
designed to revitalize the role of literary reading in American popular
culture. Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America, a 2004 NEA
report, identified a critical decline in reading for pleasure among American
adults. The Big Read aims to address this issue directly by providing citizens
with the opportunity to read and discuss a single book within their
communities.
A great book combines enlightenment with enchantment. It awakens our
imagination and enlarges our humanity. It can even offer harrowing insights
that somehow console and comfort us. Whether you're a regular reader
already or a nonreader making up for lost time, thank you for joining
the Big Read.
^diJ^^I^^
Dana Gioia
Chairman, National Endowment for the Arts
Scott Fitzgerald,
irca 1925
They stopped here and turned
toward each other... Out of die
corner of his eye Gatsby saw that the
blocks of the sidewalks really formed
a ladder and mounted to a secret
place above the trees — he could
climb to it, if he climbed alone, and
once there he could suck on the pap
of life, gulp down the incomparable
milk of wonder."
— F. SCOTT FITZGERAI D
from The Gmtt Gatsby
2 THE BIG READ • N.
Introduction to the Novel
F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1925 novel The
Great Gatsby is a tragic love story,
a mystery, and a social commentary
on American life. Although it was
not a commercial success for
Fitzgerald during his lifetime, this
lyrical novel has become an
acclaimed masterpiece read and
taught throughout the world.
Unfolding in nine concise chapters,
The Great Gatsby concerns the
wasteful lives of four wealthy
characters as observed by their
acquaintance, narrator Nick
Carraway. Like Fitzgerald himself,
Nick is from Minnesota, attended
an Ivy League university, served in
the U.S. Army during World
War I, moved to New York after
the war, and questions — even
while participating in — high
society.
Having left the Midwest to work in
the bond business in the summer of
1922, Nick settles in West Egg,
Long Island, among the nouveau
riche epitomized by his next-door
neighbor Jay Gatsby. A mysterious
man of 30, Gatsby is the subject of
endless fascination to the guests at
his lavish all-night parties. He is
rumored to be a hero of the Great
War. Others say he served as a
German spy. Gatsby claims to have
attended Oxford University, but the
evidence is suspect. As Nick learns
more about Gatsby, every detail
about him seems questionable,
except his love for the charming
Daisy Buchanan.
Jay Gatsby's decadent parties are
thrown with one goal: to attract
Daisy, who lives across the bay in
the more fashionable East Egg.
From the lawn of his sprawling
mansion, Gatsby can see the
green light glowing on her dock,
which becomes a symbol in the
novel of an unreachable treasure,
the "future that year by year
recedes before us."
Though Daisy is a married socialite
and a mother, Gatsby still worships
her as his "golden girl." They first
met when she was a young lady
from an affluent family and he was a
working-class military officer. Daisy
pledged to wait for his return from
the war. Instead she married Tom
Buchanan, a wealthy classmate of
Nick's. Having obtained a great
fortune, Gatsby sets out to win her
back again.
First Edition, Charles
Scribner's Sons, 1 925
National Endowment for the Arts • THE BIG READ 3
Major characters
in the novel
A profound indictment of class
privilege in the Jazz Age and
beyond, The Great Gatsby explores
the conflict between decency and
self-indulgence. In the novel's
famous conclusion, the characters
collide, leaving human wreckage in
their wake.
Nick Carraway
Nick, a young Midwesterner
educated at Yale, is the novel's
narrator. When he moves to the
West Egg area of Long Island, he
joins the lavish social world of Tom,
Jordan, Gatsby, and his cousin
Daisy.
Jay Gatsby
The handsome, mysterious Gatsby,
who lives in a mansion next door to
Nicks cottage, is known for his
" At his lips' touch she
blossomed for him like a
lavish parties. Nick, whom he trusts,
gradually learns about Gatsbys past
and his love for Daisy.
flower and the incarnation
was complete."
— F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
from The Great Gatsby
THE ROARING TWENTIES
The 18th Amendment,
establishing Prohibition, becomes
law.
The 1 9th Amendment passes,
giving 26 million women the right
to vote.
Warren G. Harding is elected
President.
Daisy Buchanan
Beautiful, charming, and spoiled,
Daisy is the object of Gatsby s love.
Her caprice and materialism lead her
to marry Tom Buchanan.
Tom Buchanan
From an enormously wealthy
Chicago family, Tom is a former
Yale football star who sees himself at
the top of the exclusive social
hierarchy. He is conceited, violent,
racist, and unfaithful.
Jordan Baker
Daisys friend Jordan epitomizes the
modern woman of the 1920s. A
liberated, competitive golfer, she is
firmly established in high society.
She both attracts and repels Nick as
a romantic interest.
George Wilson
The owner of an auto garage at the
edge of the valley of ashes, George
finds his only happiness through his
faithless wife, Myrtle.
Myrtle Wilson
Myrtle dreams of belonging to a
higher social class than George can
offer. Vivacious and sensual, she
hopes her adulterous affair will lead
to a life of glamour.
Charlie Chaplin stars in The Kid
Coco Chanel introduces
Chanel No. 5.
Rorschach inkblot tests first used.
"Shoeless" Joe Jackson and
others banned from baseball
in the wake of the "Black Sox"
scandal.
James Joyce's Ulysses published.
IS. Blot's The Waste Land
published.
First issue of Reader's Digest
published.
Louis Armstrong leaves New
Orleans for Chicago to play with
King Oliver.
Dance marathon craze begins.
First transcontinental nonstop
flight takes off from New York City
and lands in San Diego.
Jelly Roll Morton makes his first
Paramount recordings in Chicago.
President Harding dies; Calvin
Coolidge takes oath of office.
National Endowment for the Arts • THE BIG READ 5
F. Scott Fitzgerald,
Between Laurels
896- 1 940
481 Laurel Avenue,
St. Paul, MN
September 24, 1896:
Into a family that traces
its ancestry to the author
of "The Star Spangled
Banner," Francis Scott
Key Fitzgerald is born in
his parents' house in St.
Paul, Minnesota.
The Way Up
Although Fitzgerald's father went
bankrupt, Fitzgerald still played with
the rich kids in town. This paradox
would later inform his fiction. His
awareness of his situation sharpened
during his years at Princeton, where
he studied from 1913-17 until he
accepted a commission from the U.S.
Army. He never saw combat. During
World War I, Fitzgerald was stationed
near Montgomery, Alabama, where he
began revising what became his first
novel, This Side of Paradise (1920).
There he also met the love of his life,
Zelda Sayre, the charming, mercurial
daughter of a judge. Fitzgerald's early
literary successes soon made him and
Zelda celebrities of the Jazz Age.
During the 1920s, Zelda served as his
editor, confidante, and rival. Their
appetite for excess made them
notorious in an age when excess was
the norm. The Fitzgeralds moved to
France in 1924 with their young
daughter, Frances (nicknamed
Scottie), where they fell among a
group of American expatriate artists
whom the writer Gertrude Stein
christened the Lost Generation. In
1925 publisher Charles Scribners Sons
came out with Fitzgeralds The Great
Gatsby, which has become his most
enduring work.
1924
George Gershwin premieres
Rhapsody in Blue.
J. Edgar Hoover appointed
Director of the Bureau of
Investigation, later named the FBI.
The 10 millionth Model T rolls off
the Ford assembly line.
Colleen Moore plays the title role
in the film The Perfect Flapper.
1925
Charles Scribner's Sons publishes
The Great Gatsby.
First issue of The New Yorker
goes to press.
After John Scopes is charged
with teaching from Darwin's
Origin of Species, Clarence
Darrow takes his case.
1926
The value of bootlegging in the
U.S. is estimated at $3.6 billion.
Benny Goodman records his first
solo, "He's the Last Word," with
the Ben Pollack Band.
Henry Ford
institutes the 5-day
workweek and
8-hour workday. ■
6 THE BIG READ • National Endowment for the Arts
The Way Down
Fitzgerald would not publish
another novel for nine years. In
1932, Zelda suffered a breakdown
from which she never fully
recovered. She spent most of her
remaining days in mental
institutions. Fitzgerald sold stories to
The Saturday Evening Post and
Esquire to keep financially afloat.
Implicitly acknowledging his wife's
mental illness and his own
alcoholism, he drew on their life
abroad in the novel Tender Is the
Night (1934). Fitzgerald relocated
to Hollywood in 1 937 to write
screenplays. His sole screen credit
from this period is for the film
Three Comrades (1938). It joins his
other script credit, Pusher-in-the-
Face (1929), from an earlier
California stint. Eventually
Fitzgerald began sustained work on
his novel The Last Tycoon (1941).
Tragically, his end came before the
book's did. Several chapters shy of
finishing, Fitzgerald died of a heart
attack in the apartment of his
Hollywood companion, columnist
Sheilah Graham, while eating a
chocolate bar and listening to
Beethoven's Eroica symphony.
December 21, 1940:
Fitzgerald dies of a heart
attack. His final address:
1403 N. Laurel Avenue.
The Jazz Singer opens as the
first talking motion picture.
Charles Lindbergh lands his
Spirit of St. Louis in Paris after
the first trans-Atlantic flight.
Ford introduces the Model A.
Duke Ellington begins a four-year
residency at the Cotton Club in
New York City,
A cover of Life
magazine, 1926
Walt Disney makes his first
Mickey Mouse silent short, Plane
Crazy, and succeeds with his
second one, Steamboat Willie,
which was synchronized to
sound.
Amelia Earhart becomes the first
woman to make a trans-Atlantic
flight.
Herbert Hoover is elected
President.
March 26: The New York Stock
Exchange hits a record high,
with 8.2 million shares traded.
The Gerber Co. invents canned
baby food.
Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell
to Arms is published. .
October 29: On Black Tuesday,
the stock market crashes.
National Endowment for the Arts • THE BIG READ 7
Most young American veterans of
the First World War came home
changed by two revelations. One
was the horror of trench warfare;
the other their exposure to life in
London and Paris, where artists
and writers celebrated sheer survival
with decadent verve.
Raised by Puritan-minded parents
to first succeed at Ivy League
universities and then in business,
masses of young men and their
wives-to-be returned at least
mildly shell-shocked by
their conflicting
experiences.
Despite serving
stateside during the
war, F. Scott Fitzgerald
nevertheless wrote of
this disenchantment
and its consequences in
his greatest works. The
nihilism of this Lost Generation is
evident from This Side of Paradises
concluding page, when Fitzgerald
said they had "grown up to find all
Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths
in man shaken."
Americans had two strong and
opposite reactions to this state of
affairs: The older generation pushed
for new laws to control social
outbursts, and the new generation
rejected those laws, especially the
1920 Prohibition Act, which forbade
the sale and consumption of
alcohol. Many Americans
turned to boodeggers, who
illegally either served
alcohol smuggled from
abroad or distilled their
own. In The Great Gatsby,
the title characters party
guests often attribute his
Louis Armstrong, 1927
8 THE BIG READ • National Endowment for the Arts
Top, Jazz Age flapper. Above,
The Country flapper, 1 922
extraordinary wealth to bootlegging
and other illicit activities.
Introducing the 75th-anniversary
edition of The Great Gatsby,
Fitzgerald scholar Matthew J.
Bruccoli wrote that the Great War
"triggered disillusionment, moral
reevaluation, social experimentation,
and hedonism. . .Although Fitzgerald
joined the parties and chronicled
them, he wrote in judgment."
"Daisy began to sing with the
music in a husky, rhythmic
whisper, bringing out a
meaning in each word that it
had never had before and
would never have again. When
the melody rose, her voice
broke up sweetly, following it, in
a way contralto voices have,
and each change tipped out a
little of her warm human
magic upon the air."
— from The Great Gatsby
Not only was he the most famous
writer of the 1920s, Fitzgerald also
coined the term "Jazz Age," which
denoted an era of ragtime, jazz,
stylish automobiles, and uninhibited
young women with bobbed hair
and short skirts.
Often called the Roaring Twenties,
the postwar decade sometimes
appears as one long flamboyant
party, where the urban rich danced
the Charleston and the foxtrot until
2 a.m. In fact, one might just as
convincingly describe it as a period
of individual possibility and lofty
aspirations to serve the greater
good. In his 1931 essay "Echoes of
the Jazz Age," Fitzgerald wrote: "It
was an age of miracles, it was an age
of art, it was an age of excess, and it
was an age of satire."
National Endowment for the Arts • THE BIG READ 9
Fitzgerald and His Other Works
Zelda Sayre refused to marry
F. Scott Fitzgerald unless he could
provide for her. Following his
honorable discharge from the Army
in 1919, he moved to New York
alone to revise his manuscript of
This Side of Paradise. Twice rejected
by the publisher Charles Scribner's
Sons, the novel was a thinly veiled
autobiography of Fitzgerald's
Princeton years. When Scribner
finally published This Side of
Paradise in 1920, Fitzgerald won not
only literary fame and temporary
financial security, but also the hand
of his beloved Zelda.
This initial success established a
pattern: After every novel, Scribner
published a new collection of
Fitzgerald's short stories. During his
lifetime, Fitzgerald was best known
as the author of more than 150
stories, originally published in such
magazines as The Saturday Evening
Post, McCalls, Redbook, and
Esquire. The collections — Flappers
and Philosophers (1920), Tales of
the Jazz Age (1922), All the Sad
Young Men (1926), and Taps at
Reveille (1935) — include such
frequently anthologized pieces as
"The Diamond as Big as the Ritz,"
"Babylon Revisited," and "Bernice
Bobs Her Hair."
I THE BIG READ • National Endowment for the Arts
In his lifetime, Fitzgerald earned
more money from his stories than
from all his novels combined. His
first Post story in 1920 sold for
$400; by 1928, some were bringing
in $3,500 apiece.
These stories provided a way for
Fitzgerald to test themes and
situations that he would later
develop in his novels. For example,
literary critics identify four stories
from All the Sad Young Men —
"Absolution," "Winter Dreams,"
"The Sensible Thing," and "The
Rich Boy" — as the "Gatsby-cluster,"
since he stripped and reused passages
from them for his 1925 masterpiece.
High living in Europe and low sales
for The Great Gatsby silenced
Fitzgerald as a novelist for nine
years, until he published Tender Is
the Night in 1934. The novel
records the marriage of psychologist
Dick Diver and his patient Nicole
Warren. As with the emotionally
ravaged Anthony and Gloria Patch
from his 1 922 novel The Beautiful
and Damned, readers often interpret
Dick and Nicole as alter egos for
their creator and his wife.
Fitzgerald's final works deal both
comically and tragically with
Hollywood. His college friend and
"Books are like
brothers. I am an
only child. Gatsby
my imaginary eldest
brother/*
— F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
from The Crack-Up
literary editor, Edmund Wilson,
edited his unfinished novel The Last
Tycoon for publication in 1941. Its
hero, Monroe Stahr, is partly based
on Irving Thalberg, MGM's "boy
wonder" producer. Fitzgerald's
seventeen Pat Hobby stories,
originally written for Esquire,
chronicle their hapless hero's
misadventures as a screenwriter.
Scribner published a collection of
them posthumously in 1962.
Other posthumous collections
include The Crack-Up (1945), The
Stories ofF. Scott Fitzgerald (1951),
and The Basil and Josephine Stories
(1973). These and the other books
mentioned here demonstrate how
much more there is to Fitzgerald
than just one book, however great.
National Endowment for the Arts • THE BIG READ
Fitzgerald at the Movies
IftBB
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f\UB
HUSSB
Fitzgerald's masterpiece has not had
the best of luck at the movies. Only
the 1974 incarnation, starring
Robert Redford as Jay Gatsby — and
written by Francis Ford Coppola
after Truman Capote failed to
deliver — comes closest to capturing
the poetry of the original. However,
despite Redford's artful performance,
Fitzgerald scholar Matthew J.
Bruccoli prefers Alan Ladd s 1 949
Above, 1 949's The Great Gatsby played
up the story's gangster elements.
Above right, the first Hollywood
production of The Great Gatsby was
released only one year after the
book in 1 926.
Right, Robert Redford and Mia
Farrow appeared on the cover of
TIME in March 1974.
I 2 THE BIG READ • National Endowment for the Arts
interpretation of the role, finding
Redford too intelligent to capture
Gatsby's naivete.
Fitzgerald's other fiction has fared
better on screen. The most
ambitious adaptation of his work
may still be the BBC's award-
winning Tender Is the Night (1985),
scripted by Dennis Potter {Pennies
From Heaven) and starring Peter
Strauss and Mary Steenburgen as
Dick and Nicole Diver.
The Fitzgerald story "Teamed
With Genius" became a witty TV
movie written and directed by
Robert Thompson {Northern
Exposure)^ featuring a strong lead
performance from Christopher
Lloyd as the author's comic
screenwriter alter ego, Pat Hobby.
Joan Micklin Silver {Hester Street)
wrote and directed an acclaimed
TV version of the story "Bernice
Bobs Her Hair," starring Shelley
Duvall (1976). Even Nobel laureate
Harold Pinter's somber feature
adaptation of The Last Tycoon
(1976) for director Elia Kazan has
its defenders, and Robert De Niro's
delivery of Monroe Stahr's immortal
speech about the movies is a
showstopper.
Which of the following adaptations
deserved the green light?
rlcTnSS 77m frX »Tu»iYS VA\
Directed by Robert Markowitz.
Written by John McLaughlin. Starring
Toby Stephens as Gatsby, Mira
Sorvino as Daisy, Martin Donovan
as Tom, and Paul Rudd as Nick.
The Great Gatsby ( i -974)
Directed by Jack Clayton. Written by
Francis Ford Coppola. Starring Robert
Redford as Gatsby, Mia Farrow as
Daisy, Bruce Dern as Tom, Karen
Black as Myrtle, Scott Wilson as
Wilson, Sam Waterston as Nick, Lois
Chiles as Jordan, and Howard Da Silva
asWolfsheim.
The Great Gatsby (1949)
Directed by Elliot Nugent Written by
Cyril Hume and Richard Maibaum.
Starring Alan Ladd as Gatsby, Betty
Field as Daisy, Macdonaid Carey as
Nick, Ruth Hussey as Jordan/Barry
Sullivan as Tom, Howard Da Silva as
Wilson, and Shelley Winters as
Myrtle.
The Great Gatsby (1926)
Directed by Herbert Brenon. Written
by Becky Gardiner from an
adaptation by Elizabeth Meehan.
Starring Warner Baxter as Gatsby,
Lois Wilson as Daisy, Neil Hamilton
as Nick, Georgia Hale as Myrtle, and
William Powell as Wilson.
National Endowment for the Arts 'THE BIG READ | 3
Discussion Questions
1. The novel's action occurs in
1922 between June and
September. How does Nicks
non-chronological narration
shape your response to the
events surrounding the
mystery of Jay Gatsby?
2. Nick believes he is an honest,
non-judgmental narrator. Do
you agree?
3. Gatsby believes that the past
can be repeated. Is he right?
4. Why does Daisy sob into the
"thick folds" of Gatsby s
beautiful shirts?
5. What do the faded eyes of
Doctor T.J. Eckleburg
symbolize? Is there a
connection between this
billboard and the green light at
the end of Daisys dock?
6. Perhaps the novel's climax
occurs when Gatsby confronts
Tom in New York. Did Daisys
ultimate choice surprise you?
Is it consistent with her
character?
7. Do you agree with Nick's final
assertion that Gatsby is "worth
the whole damn bunch put
together"? Why or why not?
*No grand idea was ever
born in a conference, but
a lot of foolish ideas have
died there/*
— F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
from The Crack-Up
8. How does Fitzgerald
foreshadow the tragedies
at the end?
9. Does the novel critique or
uphold the values of the Jazz
Age and the fears of the Lost
Generation?
10. Fitzgerald wrote, "You don't
write because you want to say
something, you write because
you have something to say."
What did he have to say in
The Great Gatsby?
1 1 . Fitzgerald scholar Matthew J.
Bruccoli claims: " The Great
Gatsby does not proclaim the
nobility of the human spirit; it
is not politically correct; it does
not reveal how to solve the
problems of life; it delivers no
fashionable or comforting
messages. It is just a
masterpiece." Do you agree?
I 4 THE BIG READ • National Endowment for the Arts
If you Ve intrigued
by the 1 920s, you might
also enjoy reading:
Ernest Hemingway's
The Sun Also Rises ( 1 926)
•
If you're intrigued by novels
about lives of privilege, you
might also enjoy reading:
John O'Hara's
Appointment in Samarra (1934)
If you're intrigued by the
Fitzgeralds, you might also enjoy
Zelda's only novel:
Zelda Fitzgerald's
Save Me the Waltz (1 932)
Additional Resources
Fitzgerald's books published
during his lifetime
This Side of Paradise, 1920
Flappers and Philosophers, 1920
The Beautiful and Damned, 1 922
Tales of the Jazz Age, 1 922
The Vegetable, 1923
The Great Gats by, 1925
All the Sad Young Men, 1926
Tender Is the Night, 1934
Taps at Reveille, 1935
Fitzgerald's only publisher during his lifetime
was Charles Scribner's Sons.
Posthumously published
The Love of the Last Tycoon: A
Western. New York: Scribner, 1941.
(Originally published under editor
Edmund Wilsons tide, The Last
Tycoon.)
The Crack-Up. Ed. Edmund Wilson.
New York: New Directions, 1945.
Other works about Fitzgerald
and the Jazz Age
Bruccoli, Matthew J. Some Sort of
Epic Grandeur: The Life ofF. Scott
Fitzgerald. 2nd Rev. ed. Columbia:
University of South Carolina Press,
2002.
Cowley, Malcolm. Exiles Return: A
Literary Odyssey of the 1920s. New
York: Norton, 1934. Rev. ed. New York:
Viking, 1951.
A flask given to
Fitzgerald from
Zelda, inscribed: "To
I st Lt. F. Scott
Fitzgerald/65th
Infantry/Camp
Sheridan/Forget-me-
not/Zelda/9-13-18/
Montgomery, Ala"
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Letters ofF.
Scott Fitzgerald. Ed. Andrew Turnbull.
New York: Scribner, 1971.
— . The Notebooks ofF Scott
Fitzgerald. Ed. Matthew J. Bruccoli.
New York: Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich/Bruccoli Clark, 1978.
Graham, Sheilah. College of One. New
York: Viking, 1967.
Milford, Nancy. Zelda. New York:
Harper & Row, 1970.
Ring, Frances Kroll. Against the
Current: As I Remember F. Scott
Fitzgerald. San Francisco: Ellis/Creative
Arts, 1985.
Web sites
www.sc.edu/fitzgerald
The F Scott Fitzgerald Centenary Web
site celebrates his writings, his life, and
his relationships with other twentieth-
century writers.
www.fitzgeraldsociety.org
F. Scott Fitzgerald Society: An affiliate
of the American Literature Association,
this international society publishes die
F Scott Fitzgerald Society Newsletter
and holds conferences.
I 6 THE BIG READ • National Endowment for the Arts
W9
NATIONAL
ENDOWMENT
FOR THE ARTS
>:• ..INSTITUTE of „ ..
3. MuseurriandLibrary
>V; ' SERVICES
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AH
MIDWEST
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The National Endowment for the Arts is a public agency dedicated to supporting
excellence in the arts — both new and established — bringing the arts to all Americans,
and providing leadership in arts education. Established by Congress in 1 965 as an
independent agency of the federal government, the Endowment is the nations largest
annual hinder of the arts, bringing great art to all 50 states, including rural areas, inner
cities, and military bases.
The Institute of Museum and Library Services is the primary source of federal support
for the nations 122,000 libraries and 17,500 museums. The Institutes mission is to
create strong libraries and museums that connect people to information and ideas.
The Institute works at the national level and in coordination with state and local
organizations to sustain heritage, culture, and knowledge; enhance learning and
innovation; and support professional development.
Arts Midwest connects people throughout the Midwest and the world to meaningful
arts opportunities, sharing creativity, knowledge, and understanding across boundaries.
One of six non-profit regional arts organizations in the United States, Arts Midwest's
history spans more than 25 years.
Boeing is the world's leading aerospace company and the largest combined
manufacturer of commercial jediners and military aircraft. As a leading contractor to
the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), Boeing works together with its DoD
customers to provide U.S. Armed Forces and U.S. allies around the world with fully
integrated high-performing systems solutions and support.
Additional support for the Big Read has also been provided by the WK. Kellogg
Foundation in partnership with Community Foundations of America.
Works Cited
Excerpts from the novel reprinted with permission of Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group, from
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Copyright 1925 by Charles Scribner's Sons. Copyright renewed 1953 by Frances Scott
Fitzgerald Lanahan.
Bruccoli, Matthew J., Preface. The Great Gatsby. By F. Scott Fitzgerald. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995. vii-xvi.
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Crack-Up. Ed. Edmund Wilson. New York: New Directions, 1945.
— . The Letters ofF. Scott Fitzgerald. Reprinted with permission of Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing
Group from The Letters ofF Scott Fitzgerald edited by Andrew Turnbull. Copyright © 1963 by Frances Scott Fitzgerald
Lanahan. Copyright renewed © 1991.
— . This Side of Paradise by E Scott Fitzgerald. (New York: Scribner, 1920, 1998).
Acknowledgments
David Kipen, NEA Director of Literature
Writers: Jon Peede, David Kipen, Erika Koss, and Dan Stone for the National Endowment for the Arts, with preface by
Dana Gioia
Series Editor: Erika Koss for the National Endowment for the Arts
Special thanks to Susannah Bielak, Susan Chandler, Maryrose Flanigan, and Liz Edgar Hernandez; contributions to the 1 920s
timeline from the Chicago Historical Society
Graphic Design: Fletcher Design/Washington, D.C.
Image Credits
Cover Portrait John Sherffius for the Big Read. Inside Front Coven Getty Images. Page 1: Photo by Vance Jacobs. Page 2: The Great Gatsby book
cover painting by Francis Cugat, courtesy of the Matthew J . and Arlyn Bruccoli Collection of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Thomas Cooper Library, University
of South Carolina, used with permission of Scribner, an imprint of Simon and Schuster Adult Publishing Group; F Scott Fitzgerald, .American
Stock/Getty Images. Page 4: Puttnam/Getty Images. Page 5: CORBIS. Page 6: top, Eugene Debs Becker, Minnesota Historical Society; bottom, Getty
Images. Page 7: Image by Veronique A. deTurenne. Page 8: top, American Stock/Getty Images; bottom, Getty Images. Page 9: Image courtesy of the
Motion Picture Department of the George Eastman House. Page 10: Book covers courtesy of the Matthew J. and Arlyn Bruccoli Collection ofF
Scott Fitzgerald, Thomas Cooper Library, University of South Carolina, used with permission of Scribner. Page 11: Getty Images. Page 12: top, Getty
Images; middle, Paramount Pictures/Getty Images; bottom, image by Steve Shapiro/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images. Page 15: top left, image bv
Kenneth Melvin Wright, Minnesota Historical Society; top right, courtesy of the Matthew J. and Arlyn Bruccoli Collection ofF. Scott Fitzgerald,
Thomas Cooper Library, University of South Carolina, used with permission of Scribner; bottom right, image by Minneapolis Sun and Tribune.
Minnesota Historical Society. Page 16: courtesy of the Matthew J. and Arlyn Bruccoli Collection ofF Scon Fitzgerald, Thomas Cooper Library.
University of South Carolina.
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ENDOWMENT
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