Overview
This third volume in The Library of America's authoritative edition of John Steinbeck's writings shows one of America's most enduring popular writers continuing restlessly to explore new subject matter and new approaches to storytelling. The Moon Is Down (1942), set in an unnamed Scandinavian country under German occupation, dramatizes the transformation of ordinary life under totalitarian rule and the underground struggle against the Nazi invaders.In Cannery Row (1945) Steinbeck paid tribute to his closest friend, the marine biologist Ed Ricketts, in the central character of Doc, proprietor of the Western Biological Laboratory and spiritual and financial mainstay of a cast of philosophical drifters and hangers-on. The comic and bawdy evocation of the main street of Monterey's sardine-canning district has made this one of the most popular of all Steinbeck's novels. Steinbeck's long involvement with Mexican culture is distilled in The Pearl (1947). Expanding on an anecdote he had heard about a boy who found a pearl of unusual size, Steinbeck turned it into an allegory of the corrupting influence of sudden wealth. The Pearl appears here with the original illustrations by Jos Clemente Orozco. Ambitious in scale and original in structure, East of Eden (1952) recounts the violent and emotionally turbulent history of a Salinas Valley family through several generations. Drawing on Biblical parallels, East of Eden is an epic that explores the writer's deepest and most anguished concerns within a landscape that for him had mythic resonance. LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation's literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America's best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.
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Details
- ISBN-13: 9781931082075
- ISBN-10: 1931082073
- Publisher: Library of America
- Publish Date: February 2002
- Dimensions: 8.17 x 5.3 x 1.36 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
- Page Count: 983
- Reading Level: Ages 18-UP
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Celebrating the Steinbeck centenary
When most people hear John Steinbeck's name, they think of his gritty masterpiece The Grapes of Wrath, or perhaps of one of the evocative novellas that still are read in high schools across the land - The Pearl, The Red Pony, Cannery Row, Of Mice and Men. But few remember that Steinbeck's byline appeared frequently above nonfiction pieces in some of the major periodicals of his day, or that he published a number of well-received nonfiction books, including Travels with Charley, the story of a cross-country journey with his poodle; Once There Was a War, a collection of his journalistic dispatches from Europe during the Second World War; and his final book, America and Americans.
In time for the 100th birthday of the Nobel laureate on February 27th, this last book is being reissued as part of a volume called America and Americans and Selected Nonfiction, edited by Susan Shillinglaw and Jackson J. Benson. Written in 1966, two years before the writer's death, the nine essays originally accompanied a collection of photographs, but they stand alone here, and they stand up well. Although late in life Steinbeck jeopardized his lifelong credentials as a liberal by supporting his friend Lyndon Johnson's stance on Vietnam, these "think pieces" reaffirm that his dogged populism and progressive beliefs were still very much intact at the end. The essays underscore how much Steinbeck loved the country and its people, an affection that was not a blind one. He was appreciative of America's uniqueness, but equally aware of its contradictions and suspicious of its parochialism.
The real appeal of this new book, though, are the 30-odd years' worth of shorter pieces, many never before collected. It is from these that we get a firm sense of Steinbeck the man. In his nonfiction, he often wrote in an informal, almost conversational voice that is somewhat different from the voice we hear in his fiction. There are no bounds to Steinbeck's choice of subjects. He writes about things we expect him to write about: California labor issues, the Congressional witch hunts of the '50s, the battlefields of Europe and Southeast Asia. But there are a lot of surprising pieces here, too: affectionate vignettes from time spent living in Paris; a generation gap-spanning dialogue with his two young sons; appreciations of Robert Capa, Henry Fonda and Bob Hope; random thoughts on fishing, book collecting and dogs; open letters to Adlai Stevenson and Yevgeny Yevtushenko.
One of the longer pieces is a freewheeling eulogy of his friend Ed Ricketts, the marine biologist who inspired the central character of Doc in Cannery Row. It is interesting to see how closely Steinbeck limned the truth in that novel, which is one of four collected in Steinbeck: Novels 1942-1952, the Library of America's third and final volume of his major works. Also in this edition are his timeless parable The Pearl, with its original illustrations by José Clemente Orozco, and the less familiar The Moon Is Down, a novella about the Nazi occupation of an unnamed Scandinavian country. But the centerpiece of the collection is East of Eden, Steinbeck's magisterial retelling of the book of Genesis through several generations of a Salinas Valley family. Those who only know the story from the Elia Kazan film adaptation are in for a treat, for the novel spans many more years and tells a much richer story.
For the Steinbeck centennial, Penguin is also reissuing The Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men, East of Eden, Cannery Row, The Pearl and Travels with Charley in new commemorative trade paperback editions, as well as a boxed set of all six books. Whether by sampling the lesser-known nonfiction or diving into one of the great works of fiction, Steinbeck's centennial birthday provides the perfect opportunity to become reacquainted with the writing of a master who was unquestionably one of the most important and widely read chroniclers of America in the mid-20th century.
California-based writer Robert Weibezahl has been a devoted Steinbeck fan since first reading The Red Pony and The Pearl in the seventh grade.
Celebrating the Steinbeck centenary
When most people hear John Steinbeck's name, they think of his gritty masterpiece The Grapes of Wrath, or perhaps of one of the evocative novellas that still are read in high schools across the land - The Pearl, The Red Pony, Cannery Row, Of Mice and Men. But few remember that Steinbeck's byline appeared frequently above nonfiction pieces in some of the major periodicals of his day, or that he published a number of well-received nonfiction books, including Travels with Charley, the story of a cross-country journey with his poodle; Once There Was a War, a collection of his journalistic dispatches from Europe during the Second World War; and his final book, America and Americans.
In time for the 100th birthday of the Nobel laureate on February 27th, this last book is being reissued as part of a volume called America and Americans and Selected Nonfiction, edited by Susan Shillinglaw and Jackson J. Benson. Written in 1966, two years before the writer's death, the nine essays originally accompanied a collection of photographs, but they stand alone here, and they stand up well. Although late in life Steinbeck jeopardized his lifelong credentials as a liberal by supporting his friend Lyndon Johnson's stance on Vietnam, these "think pieces" reaffirm that his dogged populism and progressive beliefs were still very much intact at the end. The essays underscore how much Steinbeck loved the country and its people, an affection that was not a blind one. He was appreciative of America's uniqueness, but equally aware of its contradictions and suspicious of its parochialism.
The real appeal of this new book, though, are the 30-odd years' worth of shorter pieces, many never before collected. It is from these that we get a firm sense of Steinbeck the man. In his nonfiction, he often wrote in an informal, almost conversational voice that is somewhat different from the voice we hear in his fiction. There are no bounds to Steinbeck's choice of subjects. He writes about things we expect him to write about: California labor issues, the Congressional witch hunts of the '50s, the battlefields of Europe and Southeast Asia. But there are a lot of surprising pieces here, too: affectionate vignettes from time spent living in Paris; a generation gap-spanning dialogue with his two young sons; appreciations of Robert Capa, Henry Fonda and Bob Hope; random thoughts on fishing, book collecting and dogs; open letters to Adlai Stevenson and Yevgeny Yevtushenko.
One of the longer pieces is a freewheeling eulogy of his friend Ed Ricketts, the marine biologist who inspired the central character of Doc in Cannery Row. It is interesting to see how closely Steinbeck limned the truth in that novel, which is one of four collected in Steinbeck: Novels 1942-1952, the Library of America's third and final volume of his major works. Also in this edition are his timeless parable The Pearl, with its original illustrations by José Clemente Orozco, and the less familiar The Moon Is Down, a novella about the Nazi occupation of an unnamed Scandinavian country. But the centerpiece of the collection is East of Eden, Steinbeck's magisterial retelling of the book of Genesis through several generations of a Salinas Valley family. Those who only know the story from the Elia Kazan film adaptation are in for a treat, for the novel spans many more years and tells a much richer story.
For the Steinbeck centennial, Penguin is also reissuing The Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men, East of Eden, Cannery Row, The Pearl and Travels with Charley in new commemorative trade paperback editions, as well as a boxed set of all six books. Whether by sampling the lesser-known nonfiction or diving into one of the great works of fiction, Steinbeck's centennial birthday provides the perfect opportunity to become reacquainted with the writing of a master who was unquestionably one of the most important and widely read chroniclers of America in the mid-20th century.
California-based writer Robert Weibezahl has been a devoted Steinbeck fan since first reading The Red Pony and The Pearl in the seventh grade.