September 24

September 24 is the birthdate of F. Scott Fitzgerald, author of novels and short stories chronicling the flamboyant “Jazz Age” (a term he coined in Tales of the Jazz Age, 1922), the “anything goes" era following World War I. He grew up acutely conscious of wealth and privilege and his family's exclusion from the social elite. His greatest novel, The Great Gatsby (1925), which fell short of his earlier novels’ commercial success, describes the arc of a wealthy bootlegger obsessed with the unobtainable. Fitzgerald conveys a sweeping sense of dreams, hopes and youthful awe inspired by the promise of America, and also the betrayal, corruption and dark loss hidden within that promise. Pictured: First edition of Gatsby with scarce dust jacket, auctioned in 2009 for the astounding price of $180,000.