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. Considered Fitzgerald’s best work, The Great Gatsby is a mystical, timeless story of integrity and cruelty, vision and despair.

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1896, attended Princeton University, and published his first novel, This Side of Paradise, in 1920. Fitzgerald was hailed early on as a major new voice in American fiction; his other novels include The Beautiful and Damned and Tender Is the Night. He died of a heart attack at the age of forty-four, while working on The Love of the Last Tycoon.

Alexander Scourby is a veteran actor of stage and screen. He distinguished himself as narrator of many television specials, most notably, The Body Human, and recorded more than five hundred books for the blind for the Library of Congress, as well as the Bible.