The Great Gatsby is one of the greatest novels ever written and a masterpiece of American fiction. Midwesterner Nick Carraway spends a summer on Long Island where he is gradually lured into the ultra-glamorous parties and social circle of his mysterious neighbor, Jay Gatsby. It is a tale of obsessive passion, reckless decadence, excess, and disillusionment, but also of the power of love and dreams to alter our world. Fitzgerald’s glittering portrayal of 1920s elite society during the Jazz Age is an enduring testament to the tantalizing power and peril of the American Dream.

Francis Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) published his first novel, This Side of Paradise, in 1920 to instant acclaim. Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda embodied the spirit of the Jazz Age—the glamour and grit of which Fitzgerald captured in stories and novels that powerfully resonate today, including The Beautiful and Damned and Tender Is the Night. Haunted by alcoholism, marital problems, and Zelda’s illness, Fitzgerald took his immense literary talents to the dream factories of Hollywood where he died in 1940 while working on his unfinished novel, The Last Tycoon.

Ulrich Baer is University Professor at New York University where he teaches literature and photography. A graduate of Harvard and Yale and recipient of Guggenheim, Getty, and Humboldt fellowships, he has published widely on poetry, fiction, photography, and other topics.

Delving deep into China's great transformation, this moving collection of stories probes the hearts of everyday individuals caught up in the country's rapid economic development. Told with tenderness and emotional acuity, these stories introduce us to a heartbroken taxi driver, a love-struck middle-aged mother, a courageous cutting-edge designer, a drifting waiter, a Tai Chi instructor down on her luck, and a young American in search of himself. They are all denizens of China's most vibrant city - Shanghai, united by the universal longing to feel connected, to be known, and to love and be loved.

Ulrich Baer is University Professor at New York University where he teaches literature and photography. The recipient of Guggenheim, Getty, and Humboldt fellowships, he is the author and editor of numerous books, including Remnants of Song: Charles Baudelaire and Paul Celan; Spectral Evidence: The Photography of Trauma; Rilke: The Last Interval; What Snowflakes Get Right: Free Speech on Campus.

Smaran Dayal is a Ph.D. candidate in Comparative Literature at New York University, currently completing a dissertation on Afrofuturist fiction. He holds a B.A. in English and American Studies from the University of Freiburg and an M.A. in American Studies from the Humboldt University, Berlin. He is the co-translator of The Queer Intersectional in Contemporary Germany.

Acclaim for Fictions of America: The Book of Firsts

“A fascinating series of texts, some familiar, many not, that does nothing less than uncover a new American literature...essential and eye-opening to students and scholars alike.”
—Ross Posnock, Columbia University

“A stunningly diverse array of authors published across three centuries.”
—Sarah Rivett, Princeton University

“Invites us all to grapple with who counts and why...Embodies a deeper set of truths than many circulating U.S. history textbooks.”
—John Kuo Wei Tchen, Co-founder, Museum of Chinese in America

William Shakespeare (1564 to 1616) was an English playwright, poet, and actor. He is widely considered the greatest writer in the English language and the world’s greatest dramatist.

Ulrich Baer holds a BA from Harvard and a PhD from Yale. A widely published author, he is University Professor at New York University, and has been awarded Guggenheim, Getty, and Alexander von Humboldt fellowships. He has written numerous books on poetry, photography and cultural politics, and edited and translated Rainer Maria Rilke’s The Dark Interval, Letters on Life, and Letters to a Young Poet. He hosts leading writers and artists to talk about big ideas and great books on the Think About It podcast. In the Warbler Press Contemplations series, he has published: Dickinson on Love, Nietzsche on Love, Rilke on Love, Wilde on Love, and Shakespeare on Love.

It is 2025, and a young White House aide, Aleks, finds himself locked up in quarantine when he tested positive after a routine briefing from a hotspot. Aleks recounts how our much-admired female president became a globally revered leader who unites much of the world under the environmental banner. Aleks’s position as environmental advisor to the president’s policy team gives him a privileged insider’s view into the political maneuvering that has led to U.S. global dominance.

When he discovers unfamiliar files on his computer, he is thrown into a moral crisis over who he trusts, what he believes, and the value of the causes for which he has been fighting as he grapples to make sense of the people and events that led to his quarantine.

Philosophical rather than prescriptive, the book is about how we live and die in the 21st century, what we consume, how we inhabit our world, and whether we can all live and love in the future.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) was a German philosopher, cultural critic, composer, poet, philologist, and Latin and Greek scholar. One of the greatest thinkers of all time, his ideas have exerted an immeasurable influence on philosophy, politics, art, literature, psychology, and popular culture around the world.

Ulrich Baer holds a BA from Harvard and a PhD from Yale. He is University Professor at New York University, where he teaches literature and photography. He has been awarded Guggenheim, Getty, and Alexander von Humboldt fellowships. A widely recognized expert on poetry and translator, among his books are Rainer Maria Rilke’s The Dark Interval, Letters on Life, and Letters to a Young Poet. Other books include Spectral Evidence: The Photography of Trauma, What Snowflakes Get Right: Free Speech, Truth, and Equality on Campus, and in the Contemplations series: Dickinson on Love and Rilke on Love. He lives in New York City.

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926) was born in Prague into a German-speaking family. While based in Paris, he traveled broadly until finally settling in Switzerland. Rilke’s verse deeply influenced subsequent poets and writers. His Duino Elegies and Sonnets to Orpheus count among the great achievements in world literature. Some of Rilke’s letters are available in English as Letters to a Young Poet, Letters on Life, and The Dark Interval.

Ulrich Baer holds a BA from Harvard and a PhD from Yale. He is University Professor at New York University, where he teaches literature and photography. He has been awarded Guggenheim, Getty, and Alexander von Humboldt fellowships. A widely recognized expert on poetry and translator, among his books are Rainer Maria Rilke’s The Dark Interval, Letters on Life, and Letters to a Young Poet. Other books include Spectral Evidence: The Photography of Trauma, What Snowflakes Get Right: Free Speech, Truth, and Equality on Campus, and in the Contemplations series: Nietzsche on Love and Dickinson on Love. He lives in New York City.