Free American Classics Documentaries

Guests talked about the life, works and legacy of author F. Scott Fitzgerald in an effort to learn about the Jazz Age and "the Roaring Twenties."

Guests examined the history of post-Civil War Reconstruction, the Gilded Age, and race relations through the writings of Mark Twain.

From Sunset Boulevard and the Harmony Gold Theater, the guests talked about the political history of America and the world from the mid-1930s to post-World War II through the life and writings of novelist, screenwriter, and philosopher Ayn Rand.

From the library of DeWitt Clinton High School, where James Baldwin attended school, guests examined racism in America and the rise of the civil rights movement through the life and writings of social critic James Baldwin.

From Rowan Oak, William Faulkner's home, the guests talked about his life and his writings, focusing on the Yoknapatawpha County novels.

Guests discussed the history of the Early Republic, the transcendental movement, and American intellectual history through the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.

From Ernest Hemingway's home in Key West, Florida, the guests talked about his life and writings, and how the history of the 1920s and 1930s was characterized in his novels and short stories, with emphasis on The Sun Also Rises.

Guests examined the history of the Gilded Age through the writings of Edith Wharton, author of The Age of Innocence, The House of Mirth, The Custom of the Country and Ethan Frome.

More than 40 years after his death, Hemingway is one of the most widely read and written about American authors. Many of his works are still in print, some in as many as 20 languages, including A Farewell to Arms, The Sun Also Rises and For Whom the Bell Tolls.

He was a great American original, a gifted and irreverent storyteller whose portrayal of a wild young nation captured the imagination of the world.