A masterpiece of Biblical scope, and the magnum opus of one of America’s most enduring authors, in a commemorative hardcover editionIn his journal, Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck called East of Eden "the first book," and indeed it has the primordial power and simplicity of myth. Set in the rich farmland of California's Salinas Valley, this sprawling and often brutal novel follows the intertwined destinies of two families—the Trasks and the Hamiltons—who...

Good, evil, and the ability to choose between them lies at the core of John Steinbeck’s sprawling masterpiece. The story follows two of the valley’s most prominent families across several generations, from around the time of the American Civil War to the end of World War I. Will the younger generation learn from their elders’ mistakes? Or are they doomed to be repeated time and time again?Inspired by the Biblical story of Cain and Abel, Steinbeck considered East of Eden to be his f...

John Ernst Steinbeck Jr. has been called "a giant of American letters".His magnum opus 'The Grapes of Wrath' (1939), which epitomises the harrowing events of the Clutch Plague era, stirred widespread sympathy for the plight of migrant workers.Many of Steinbeck's works are set in the Salinas Valley of his childhood and they frequently explore themes of fate and the injustices suffered by their everyman protagonists. Fashioned with rich symbolic structures, they convey archetyp...

A Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition of Steinbeck's brilliant short novelsCollected here for the first time in a deluxe paperback volume are six of John Steinbeck's most widely read and beloved novels. From the tale of commitment, loneliness and hope in Of Mice and Men, to the tough yet charming portrait of people on the margins of society in Cannery Row, to The Pearl's examination of the fallacy of the American dream, Steinbeck stories of realism, that were imbued wi...

“Go on, George! Tell about what we’re gonna have in the garden and about the rabbits in the cages and about the rain in the winter and the stove, and how thick the cream is on the milk like you can hardly cut it. Tell about that, George.”An ode to the power of true friendship, and what it means to choose your own family, John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men follows the story of two misfits trying to carve out a spot for themselves in a world that doesn’t want them. George and Lennie ar...

Adopting the structure and themes of the Arthurian legend, John Steinbeck created a “Camelot” on a shabby hillside above the town of Monterey, California, and peopled it with a colorful band of knights. At the center of the tale is Danny, whose house, like Arthur’s castle, becomes a gathering place for men looking for adventure, camaraderie, and a sense of belonging—men who fiercely resist the corrupting tide of honest toil and civil rectitude.As Nobel Prize winner Steinbeck chroni...

In Monterey, on the California Coast, Sweet Thursday is what they call the day after Lousy Wednesday, which is one of those days that's just naturally bad. Returning to the scene of CANNERY ROW, the weedy lots, junk heaps and flop houses of Monterey, Steinbeck once again brings to life the denizens of a netherworld of laughter and tears. The book is in many ways a statement about Steinbeck's greatest theme: the common bonds of humanity and love which make goodness and happiness possible.

Driven out of their farm in Oklahoma, the Joads pack up the family car and head west to California in search of greener pastures. When the promised land doesn’t live up to the advertising, the conflict between rich farm owners and poor workers leads to violence and unrest. Will the Joad family be able to scrape together enough to survive? Or will they become casualties of the landowners’ greed?The incisive portrayal of the struggle for equality and justice brought to light the oppr...

The Pulitzer Prize-winning epic of the Great Depression, a book that galvanized—and sometimes outraged—millions of readers.One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 YearsFirst published in 1939, Steinbeck’s Pulitzer Prize-winning epic of the Great Depression chronicles the Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s and tells the story of one Oklahoma farm family, the Joads—driven from their homestead and forced to travel we...

In Dubious Battle deals with a fruit-workers' strike in a California valley and the attempts of labor unions to organize, lead, and provide for the striking pickers.Jim Nolan meets Harry Nilson who initiates Jim's application process to become the newest member of the Party. Mac "Doc" McLeod, the Party organizer, tells Jim they will go to the Torgas Valley (a composite location) in an attempt to rouse the two thousand fruit pickers against the Growers' Association, and to encourage...

"In the town they tell the story of the great pearl - how it was found and how it was lost again. They tell of Kino, the fisherman, and of his wife, Juana, and of the baby, Coyotito. And because the story has been told so often, it has taken root in every man's mind. And, as with all retold tales that are in people's hearts, there are only good and bad things and black and white things and good and evil things and no in-between anywhere.If this story is a parable, perhaps everyone takes hi...

Steinbeck's last great novel focuses on the theme of success and what motivates men towards it. Reflecting back on his New England family's past fortune, and his father's loss of the family wealth, the hero, Ethan Allen Hawley, characterises successin every era and in all its forms as robbery, murder, even a kind of combat, operating under 'the laws of controlled savagery