The Centennial boxed set includes: East of Eden, The Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men, Cannery Row, The Pearl, and Travels with Charley in Search of America. @IAmWithSam Lennie came back into the cabin with that look on his face and I said, Lennie, did you kill another woman? He told me he had done it again, he thought. Why do I get stuck with the dangerously disabled? Did Forrest Gump ever hurt anyone? From "Twitterature: The World's Greatest Books in Twenty Tweets or Less"
American author John Ernst Steinbeck Jr. (February 27, 1902 - December 20, 1968) was born in the United States. For his "realistic and inventive writings, combining as they do sympathetic humour and strong social observation," he was awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature. Many of his writings are regarded as Western literary masterpieces, and he has been dubbed "a giant of American letters." He is well known for his comedy books Cannery Row (1945) and East of Eden (1952), as well as his novels and novellas Of Mice and Men (1937) and The Pearl (1947). The Grapes of Wrath (1957), which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1939, is regarded as Steinbeck's pinnacle work. His writings frequently examined the themes of fate and injustice, particularly as they related to oppressed or everyday heroes.
Sanora Babb’s long-hidden novel Whose Names Are Unknown tells an intimate story of the High Plains farmers who fled drought dust storms during the Great Depression. Written with empathy for the farmers’ plight, this powerful narrative is based upon the author’s firsthand experience. This clear-eyed and unsentimental story centers on the fictional Dunne family as they struggle to survive and endure while never losing faith in themselves. In the Oklahoma Panhandle, Milt, Julia, their two little girls, and Milt’s father, Konkie, share a life of cramped circumstances in a one-room dugout with never enough to eat. Yet buried in the drudgery of their everyday life are aspirations, failed dreams, and fleeting moments of hope. The land is their dream. The Dunne family and the farmers around them fight desperately for the land they love, but the droughts of the thirties force them to abandon their fields. When they join the exodus to the irrigated valleys of California, they discover not the promised land, but an abusive labor system arrayed against destitute immigrants. The system labels all farmers like them as worthless “Okies” and earmarks them for beatings and worse when hardworking men and women, such as Milt and Julia, object to wages so low they can’t possibly feed their children. The informal communal relations these dryland farmers knew on the High Plains gradually coalesce into a shared determination to resist. Realizing that a unified community is their best hope for survival, the Dunnes join with their fellow workers and begin the struggle to improve migrant working conditions through democratic organization and collective protest. Babb wrote Whose Names are Unknown in the 1930s while working with refugee farmers in the Farm Security Administration (FSA) camps of California. Originally from the Oklahoma Panhandle are herself, Babb, who had first come to Los Angeles in 1929 as a journalist, joined FSA camp administrator Tom Collins in 1938 to help the uprooted farmers. As Lawrence R. Rodgers notes in his foreword, Babb submitted the manuscript for this book to Random House for consideration in 1939. Editor Bennett Cerf planned to publish this “exceptionally fine” novel but when John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath swept the nation, Cerf explained that the market could not support two books on the subject. Babb has since shared her manuscript with interested scholars who have deemed it a classic in its own right. In an era when the country was deeply divided on social legislation issues and millions drifted unemployed and homeless, Babb recorded the stories of the people she greatly respected, those “whose names are unknown.” In doing so, she returned to them their identities and dignity, and put a human face on economic disaster and social distress.
While fulfilling his dead father's dream of creating a prosperous farm in California, Joseph Wayne comes to believe that a magnificent tree on the farm embodies his father's spirit. His brothers and their families share in Joseph's prosperity andthe farm flourishes - until one brother, scared by Joseph's pagan belief, kills the tree and brings disease and famine on the farm. Set in familiar Steinbeck country, TO A GOD UNKOWN is a mystical tale, exploring one man's attempt to control theforces of nature and to understand the ways of God.
The final novel of one of America’s most beloved writers—a tale of degeneration, corruption, and spiritual crisis A Penguin Classic In awarding John Steinbeck the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature, the Nobel committee stated that with The Winter of Our Discontent, he had “resumed his position as an independent expounder of the truth, with an unbiased instinct for what is genuinely American.” Ethan Allen Hawley, the protagonist of Steinbeck’s last novel, works as a clerk in a grocery store that his family once owned. With Ethan no longer a member of Long Island’s aristocratic class, his wife is restless, and his teenage children are hungry for the tantalizing material comforts he cannot provide. Then one day, in a moment of moral crisis, Ethan decides to take a holiday from his own scrupulous standards. Set in Steinbeck’s contemporary 1960 America, the novel explores the tenuous line between private and public honesty, and today ranks alongside his most acclaimed works of penetrating insight into the American condition. This Penguin Classics edition features an introduction and notes by leading Steinbeck scholar Susan Shillinglaw. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
The magnificent novels of Steinbeck The most well-known and cherished novels of John Steinbeck are collected here for the first time in a volume. From the story of dedication, loneliness, and hope in Of Mice and Men to the exploration of the American dream's folly in The Pearl, Steinbeck wrote realistic stories that were infused with vigour and fortitude. Steinbeck, one of the best and most significant social authors of the 20th century, is still a top seller in the UK. Four of his best books, including The Grapes of Wrath, which won the Pulitzer Prize, are collected in this coveted boxed collection. East of Eden is a contemporary reworking of the first four chapters of the Book of Genesis in the Christian Bible. It serves as an allegorical tale.
"Of Mice and Men" is a novella written by John Steinbeck, first published in 1937. Set during the Great Depression in California, it tells the story of two displaced migrant ranch workers, George Milton and Lennie Small, who are trying to make a living during tough economic times. George is a small, quick-witted man, while Lennie is a physically strong but mentally disabled man with a childlike innocence. The two have a close bond, with George serving as a protector and caretaker for Lennie. The story follows their journey as they seek employment and dream of owning their own piece of land, which they call a little farm where they can live off the fat of the land. However, their dreams are constantly threatened by the harsh realities of their circumstances and the cruelty of the world around them. The novella explores themes of friendship, loneliness, isolation, and the harshness of society, as well as the plight of marginalized individuals during the Great Depression. It is a poignant and timeless work that continues to resonate with readers due to its powerful portrayal of human relationships and the struggle for survival.
Steinbeck's tough yet charming portrait of people on the margins of society, dependant on one another for both physical and emotional survival Published in 1945, Cannery Row focuses on the acceptance of life as it is: both the exuberance of community and the loneliness of the individual. Drawing on his memories of the real inhabitants of Monterey, California, including longtime friend Ed Ricketts, Steinbeck interweaves the stories of Doc, Dora, Mack and his boys, Lee Chong, and the other characters in this world where only the fittest survive, to create a novel that is at once one of his most humorous and poignant works. In her introduction, Susan Shillinglaw shows how the novel expresses, both in style and theme, much that is essentially Steinbeck: “scientific detachment, empathy toward the lonely and depressed…and, at the darkest level…the terror of isolation and nothingness.” For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators. From the Trade Paperback edition.
Set in England, Africa and Italy this collection of Steinbeck's World War II news correspondence was written for the New Yolk Herald Tribune in the latter part of 1943.
The magnificent novels of Steinbeck The most well-known and cherished novels of John Steinbeck are collected here for the first time in a volume. From the story of dedication, loneliness, and hope in Of Mice and Men to the exploration of the American dream's folly in The Pearl, Steinbeck wrote realistic stories that were infused with vigour and fortitude. Steinbeck, one of the best and most significant social authors of the 20th century, is still a top seller in the UK. Four of his best books, including The Grapes of Wrath, which won the Pulitzer Prize, are collected in this coveted boxed collection. East of Eden is a contemporary reworking of the first four chapters of the Book of Genesis in the Christian Bible. It serves as an allegorical tale.
