The Grapes of Wrath and Other Writings 1936-1941: The Long Valley, The Grapes of Wrath, The Log from the Sea of Cortez, The Harvest Gypsies (Library of America)

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Overview

This second volume in The Library of America's authoritative edition of John Steinbeck features his acknowledged masterpiece, The Grapes of Wrath.

Written in an incredibly compressed five-month period, the novel had an electrifying impact upon publication in 1939, unleashing a political storm with its vision of America's dispossessed struggling for survival. It continues to exert a powerful influence on American culture, and has inspired artists as diverse as John Ford, Woody Guthrie, and Bruce Springsteen.

Tracing the journey of the Joad family from the dust bowl of Oklahoma to the migrant camps of California, Steinbeck creates an American epic, spacious, impassioned, and pulsating with the rhythms of living speech. The novel won the Pulitzer Prize and has since sold millions of copies worldwide.

The text of The Grapes of Wrath has been newly edited based on Steinbeck's manuscript, typescript, and proofs. Many errors have been corrected and words omitted or misconstrued by his typist have been restored.

In addition, The Harvest Gypsies, his 1936 investigative report on migrant workers which laid the groundwork for the novel, is included as an appendix. The Long Valley (1938) displays Steinbeck's brilliance as a writer of short stories, including such classics as The Chrysanthemums, The White Quail, Flight, and The Red Pony. Set in the Salinas Valley landscape which was Steinbeck's enduring inspiration, the stories explore moments of fear, tenderness, isolation, and violence with poetic intensity. The Log from the Sea of Cortez, an account of the 1940 marine biological expedition in which Steinbeck participated with his close friend Ed Ricketts, is a unique blend of science, philosophy, and adventure, as well as one of Steinbeck's most revealing expositions of his core beliefs. First published in 1941 as part of the collaborative volume Sea of Cortez, Steinbeck's narrative was reissued separately a decade later, augmented by the moving tribute About Ed.

Editorial Reviews

Library Journal

Now here is something special. This edition of Steinbeck's 1939 epic of the Joad family is a newly edited version based on his original manuscript, typescript, and proofs. Words omitted or misconstrued by typists have been restored to the text for the first time.

This volume combines fiction and nonfiction works and includes the text of the 1938 collection of short stories, The Long Valley, which contains The Red Pony. There is also The Log from the Sea of Cortez, which is Steinbeck's account of a marine biological expedition, and The Harvest Gypsies, his investigative report on migrant workers that inspired Grapes.

This corrected text edition of The Grapes of Wrath is essential for all serious American literature collections, both academic and public.

Library Journal

This corrected text edition of The Grapes of Wrath is essential for all serious American literature collections, both academic and public.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781883011154
Publisher: Library of America, The
Publication date: 9/28/1996
Edition description: New Edition
Edition number: 1
Pages: 1088
Sales rank: 157,721
Series: Library of America Series
Product dimensions: 5.12 (w) x 8.12 (h) x 1.25 (d)

Meet the Author

John Steinbeck

Chronicling American dreams destroyed by either injustice or the simple difficulty of the world, John Steinbeck left lasting testaments to the struggles of working people in The Grapes of Wrath and Cannery Row. His refusal to water down his realistic work got some of his books banned – and earned him a Nobel Prize.

Biography

John Ernst Steinbeck, Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winner, was born in Salinas, California February 27, 1902. His father, John Steinbeck, served as Monterey County Treasurer for many years. His mother, Olive Hamilton, was a former schoolteacher who developed in him a love of literature. Young Steinbeck came to know the Salinas Valley well, working as a hired hand on nearby ranches in Monterey County. In 1919, he graduated from Salinas High School as president of his class and entered Stanford University majoring in English. Stanford did not claim his undivided attention. During this time he attended only sporadically while working at a variety jobs including on with the Big Sur highway project, and one at Spreckels Sugar Company near Salinas.

Steinbeck left Stanford permanently in 1925 to pursue a career in writing in New York City. He was unsuccessful and returned, disappointed, to California the following year. Though his first novel, Cup of Gold, was published in 1929, it attracted little literary attention. Two subsequent novels, The Pastures of Heaven and To A God Unknown, met the same fate.

After moving to the Monterey Peninsula in 1930, Steinbeck and his new wife, Carol Henning, made their home in Pacific Grove. Here, not far from famed Cannery Row, heart of the California sardine industry, Steinbeck found material he would later use for two more works, Tortilla Flat and Cannery Row.

With Tortilla Flat (1935), Steinbeck's career took a decidedly positive turn, receiving the California Commonwealth Club's Gold Medal. He felt encouraged to continue writing, relying on extensive research and personal observation of the human drama for his stories. In 1937, Of Mice and Men was published. Two years later, the novel was produced on Broadway and made into a movie. In 1940, Steinbeck won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for Grapes of Wrath, bringing to public attention the plight of dispossessed farmers.

After Steinbeck and Henning divorced in 1942, he married Gwyndolyn Conger. The couple moved to New York City and had two sons, Thomas and two years later, John. During the war years, Steinbeck served as a war correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune. Some of his dispatches reappeared in Once There Was A War. In 1945, Steinbeck published Cannery Row and continued to write prolifically, producing plays, short stories and film scripts. In 1950, he married Elaine Anderson Scott and they remained together until his death.

Steinbeck received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962 "...for his realistic as well as imaginative writings, distinguished by a sympathetic humor and keen social perception.." In his acceptance speech, Steinbeck summarized what he sought to achieve through his works:

"...Literature is as old as speech. It grew out of human need for it and it has not changed except to become more needed. The skalds, the bards, the writers are not separate and exclusive. From the beginning, their functions, their duties, their responsibilities have been decreed by our species...Further more, the writer is delegated to declare and to celebrate man's proven capacity of greatness of heart and spirit—gallantry in defeat, for courage, compassion and love. In the endless war against weakness and despair, these are the bright rally flags of hope and emulation. I hold that a writer who does not passionately believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication nor any membership in literature..."

Steinbeck remained a private person, shunning publicity and moving frequently in his search for privacy. He died on December 20, 1968 in New York City, where he and his family made a home. But his final resting place was the valley he had written about with such passion. At his request, his ashes were interred in the Garden of Memories cemetery in Salinas. He is survived by his son, Thomas.

Author biography courtesy of the National Steinbeck Center.

1. Also Known As:
  
  Amnesia Glasscock
  John Ernst Steinbeck, Jr. (full name); Amnesia Glasscock
1. Date of Birth:
  
  February 27, 1902
2. Place of Birth:
  
  Salinas, California
1. Date of Death:
  
  December 20, 1968
2. Place of Death:
  
  New York, New York

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The Grapes of Wrath and Other Writings 1936-1941: The Long Valley, The Grapes of Wrath, The Log from the Sea of Cortez, The Harvest Gypsies (Library of America)

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Meet the Author

John Steinbeck

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