The Pearl appears here with the original illustrations by José Clemente Orozco.Īmbitious 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. Expanding on an anecdote he heard in Baja California about a local boy who had found a pearl of unusual size, Steinbeck turned it into a parable of the corrupting influence of sudden wealth. Steinbeck’s long involvement with Mexican culture is distilled in The Pearl (1947). The comic and bawdy evocation of Monterey’s sardine-canning district'a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream'has made this one of the most popular of all of Steinbeck’s novels. 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. Although some American critics found its treatment of the German characters too sympathetic, The Moon Is Down was widely read in occupied areas of Europe, where it was regarded as an inspiring contribution to the resistance. Told largely in dialogue, the book was conceived simultaneously as a novel and a play, and was successfully produced on Broadway. 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. These four novels display the versatility and emotional directness that have made Steinbeck one of America’s most enduringly popular writers. The third volume in The Library of America’s authoritative edition of John Steinbeck’s writings shows him continuing to explore new subject matter and new approaches to storytelling.

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