Great Books Audio

The Great Gatsby – Chapter 1

 

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The Great Gatsby is a novel by the American author F. Scott Fitzgerald. First published on April 10, 1925, the story is set in New York City and Long Island during the summer of 1922. The novel chronicles an era that Fitzgerald himself dubbed the “Jazz Age.” Following the shock and chaos of World War I, American society enjoyed unprecedented levels of prosperity during the 1920s as the economy soared. At the same time, Prohibition, the ban on the sale and consumption of alcohol mandated by the Eighteenth Amendment, made millionaires out of bootleggers and encouraged organized crime. Although Fitzgerald, like Nick Carraway in his novel, idolized the riches and glamour of the age, he was uncomfortable with the unrestrained materialism and lack of morality that went with it. The Great Gatsby was not popular upon initial printing and sold fewer than 25,000 copies during the remaining fifteen years of Fitzgerald’s life. Although it was adapted into both a Broadway play and a Hollywood film within a year of publication, it was largely forgotten during the Great Depression and World War II. After it was republished in 1945 and 1953, it quickly found a wide readership, and is now often regarded as the Great American Novel. It is now a standard text in high school and university courses on American literature in countries around the world.

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The Great Gatsby – Chapter 2

 

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Nick and Tom Buchanan take the train to New York City and get together with Mrs. Wilson.

The Great Gatsby – Chapter 3, Part 1

 

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Oh my, what a party!

The Great Gatsby – Chapter 3, Part 2

 

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Oh, lonesome me. The party’s over.

The Great Gatsby – Chapter 4

 

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Scores of people visited the great house that summer of 1922, but for Gatsby it was only about Daisy.

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The Great Gatsby – Chapter 5

 

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Nick invites Daisy to tea and tells her not to bring Tom. Shortly after Daisy arrives there is a knocking at the door and Gatsby walks in. He and Daisy look at one another in awkward surprise …