I believe Don Draper's character you are talking about is Gatsby in the Great Gatsby written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Betsy Draper's character most resembles Daisy in the Great Gatsby. If you haven't read the Great Gatsby, it's one of the most wonderful pieces of American Literature.

There is also a slight touch of Babbit by Sinclaire Lewis

well reading the "handle" you chose is a dead give-away because there was some buzz recently that Don Draper was based on an actual person by the name of "Draper Daniel"

http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/August-2009/I-Married-a-Mad-Man/

Yes, most likely based on Gatsby. Jay Gatz gets a taste if the high life in WWI, hooks up with a mentor afterwards and becomes a success, after dubious beginnings as an orphan. Real American success story. In Mad Men, based on Don's confusing past (up until this last episode at least), I got the impression that he was also a composite character of everybody American from reduced circumstances, that his parents were hillbillies who migrated West to California during the dust bowl or something, in short, Don represnts all of a certain class of American at the time, as do all the other characters.

@Crest 1: >Jay Gatz gets a taste if the high life in WWI, hooks up with a mentor afterwards and becomes a success, after dubious beginnings as an orphan.

While you're correct that Don Draper is very much based on Gatsby and is a Gatsby figure, Gatsby wasn't an orphan, that's part of his false story about himself.

Gatsby claims to be an orphan (lie), says that he was born to rich parents (lie), hunted tigers in India (lie), and got his education at Oxford (kinda lie). The truth is that he's a poor farm boy (sound familiar?) who worked for a rich man, then when that man died went into the army (sound familiar?), meet a rich girl, fell in love. After the war, he becomes a bootlegger, and that is where his wealth comes from.

@Draper: What you may have in mind is not an actual piece of literature, but an author: Horatio Alger. He's most famous for writing stories about poor, orphaned, American boys pulling themselves up by the bootstraps and achieving success, thus proving the American Dream, that anyone can make it in America if they work hard at it.

OR you may be thinking of Oliver Twist by Dickens, where a poor orphan boy is found to be the grandson of a rich man and lives happily ever after. The song at the end of this week's episode, "Where is Love" was from the musical "Oliver" based on Oliver Twist. It was the hit play on Broadway back in '63.

Gatsby, that's it! Thanks a lot, everyone.

@Thirteen: Thanks for all of the insight. Horation Alger and Oliver Twist are actually the reasons my mind was cloudy on this. I learned about Alger in high school two years ago, and since books like Huckleberry Finn, Oliver Twist, and Gatsby have never been part of my any of my curriculum, despite my awareness of the cultural relevance and influence, I tend to confuse the three. So when I read a posters comparison to Gatsby I associated with Oliver Twist. Then when I realized that that couldnt be the story I was thinking of, all of the Alger stories I learned about were the only other things I could think of even though I knew they were not it.

Anyway, thanks for the feedback everyone, one less thing to have floating around in the back of my mind.