John Steinbeck: The Grapes of Wrath & Other Writings 1936-1941 (LOA #86)

John Steinbeck: The Grapes of Wrath & Other Writings 1936-1941 (LOA #86)

The Grapes of Wrath / The Harvest Gypsies / The Long Valley / The Log from the Sea of Cortez

Hardcover

About the Book

The 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. 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.

This 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 that 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 Ricketts.”

This volume contains a newly researched chronology, notes, and an essay on textual selection. It is the second of four volumes in The Library of America edition of John Steinbeck’s writings.

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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Praise for John Steinbeck: The Grapes of Wrath & Other Writings 1936-1941 (LOA #86)

“This corrected edition of The Grapes of Wrath is essential for all serious American literature collections.” Library Journal
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Library of America John Steinbeck Edition Series

John Steinbeck: Travels with Charley and Later Novels 1947-1962 (LOA #170)
John Steinbeck: Novels 1942-1952 (LOA #132)
John Steinbeck: The Grapes of Wrath & Other Writings 1936-1941 (LOA #86)
John Steinbeck: Novels and Stories 1932-1937 (LOA #72)

About the Author

John Steinbeck
John Steinbeck (1902-1968) was one of the most celebrated writers of the last century, recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1939 for The Grapes of Wrath and of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962. More by John Steinbeck
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About the Author

Robert DeMott
Robert DeMott is the Edwin and Ruth Kennedy Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Ohio University and the author of Steinbeck’s Typewriter, an award-winning book of critical essays. More by Robert DeMott
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About the Author

Elaine Steinbeck
Elaine A. Steinbeck (1914-2003), co-editor of Steinbeck: A Life in Letters, was married to John Steinbeck from 1950 until his death in 1968. More by Elaine Steinbeck
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