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John Steinbeck: Novels and Stories 1932–1937

john steinbeck robert demott elaine a. steinbeck

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John Steinbeck, from the very start of his career, evoked the landscape and people of central California with lyrical intensity and unflinching frankness. The Library of America presents for the first time in one volume Steinbeck’s early writings, which expressed his abiding concerns for community, social justice, and the elemental connection between nature and human society. In prose that blends the vernacular and the incantatory, the local and the mythic, these five works chart Steinbeck’s evolution into one of the greatest and most enduring popular of American novelists.

The Pastures of Heaven (1932), a collection of interrelated stories, delineates the troubled inner lives and sometimes disastrous fates of families living in a seemingly tranquil California valley. The surface realism of Steinbeck’s first mature work is enriched by hints of uncanny forces at work beneath.

“Deep down it’s mine, right to the center of the world,” says Salinas Valley farmer Joseph Wayne about his land in John Steinbeck’s To a God Unknown (1933). A sense of primeval magic dominates the novel as the farmer reverts to pagan nature worship and begins a tortuous journey toward catastrophe and ultimate understanding.

Steinbeck’s sympathetic depiction of the raffish paisons of Tortilla Flat (1935), a ramshackle district above Monterey, first won him popular attention. The Flat’s tenderhearted, resourceful, mildly corrupt, over-optimistic characters are a triumph of life-affirming humor.

In Dubious Battle (1936) plunges into the political struggle of the 1930s and paints a vigorous fresco of a migrant fruit-pickers’ strike. Anticipating the collective portraiture of The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck poignantly traces the surges and shifts of group behavior.

With Of Mice and Men (1937), Steinbeck secured his status as one of the most influential American writers. Lennie and George, itinerant farmhands held together in the face of deprivation only by the frailest of dreams, have long since passed into American mythology. This novel, which Steinbeck called “such a simple little thing,” is now recognized as a masterpiece of concentrated emotional power.

922 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1,1994

This edition

Format
922 pages, Hardcover
Published
September 1, 1994 by Library of America
ISBN
9781883011017
ASIN
1883011019
Language
English

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About the author

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john steinbeck

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John Ernst Steinbeck was an American writer. He won the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humor and keen social perception". He has been called "a giant of American letters."
During his writing career, he authored 33 books, with one book coauthored alongside Edward F. Ricketts, including 16 novels, six non-fiction books, and two collections of short stories. He is widely known for the comic novels Tortilla Flat (1935) and Cannery Row (1945), the multi-generation epic East of Eden (1952), and the novellas The Red Pony (1933) and Of Mice and Men (1937). The Pulitzer Prize–winning The Grapes of Wrath (1939) is considered Steinbeck's masterpiece and part of the American literary canon. By the 75th anniversary of its publishing date, it had sold 14 million copies.
Most of Steinbeck's work is set in central California, particularly in the Salinas Valley and the California Coast Ranges region. His works frequently explored the themes of fate and injustice, especially as applied to downtrodden or everyman protagonists.

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Community Reviews

Rating(4.1 / 5.0, 30 votes)
5 stars
10(33%)
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12(40%)
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30 reviews All reviews
Profile Image for Kimberly .
-DIMIDIMI
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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I love Steinbeck. He draws characters that are simply passionate. Common and anomalous.

Immerse yourself in the simple, comedic, tragic lives of these people.

ps- doesn't he look dreamy in this picture?
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Profile Image for Kimberly .
Rukuo
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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IN DUBIOUS BATTLE (dec 24 - jan 8)

'All the time at home we were fighting, fighting something - hunger mostly. My old man was fighting the bosses. I was fighting the school. But always we lost. And after a long time I guess, it got to be part of our mind-stuff that we always would lose. ... can you see the hopelessness in that?' (page 549)

OF MICE AND MEN (jul 23 - aug 5)

'George's voice became deeper. He repeated his words rhythmically as though he had said them many times before. "Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world. They got no family. They don't belong no place. They come to a ranch an' work up a stake, and the first thing you know they're poundin' their tail on some other ranch. They ain't got nothing to look ahead to."
Lennie was delighted. "That's it - that's it. Now tell how it is with us."
George went on. "Whit us it ain't like that. We got a future. We got somebody to talk to that gives a damn about us. ..."
Lennie broke in. "But not us! An' why? Because ... because I got you to look after me, and you got me to look after you, and that's why." ...

"Go on now, George!"

...

"we're gonna have a little house and a couple of acres an' a cow and some pigs and -"

...

Lennie shouted. "And have rabbits. Go on George! ... (pages 806-7)
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Profile Image for Kimberly .
SS-Senpai
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Okay... really I've only read two of the inclusions in this book: In Dubious battle, which I give 3 stars to cause it's just not Steinbeck's best and Of Mice and Men which I loved as a kid so lets say 4 stars.
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Profile Image for Kimberly .
birb_brainz
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Pastures of Heaven and To a God Unknown are one of the greatest stories I have read. In pure Steinbeck form they take the reader to a place completely unknown to anyone in this day and age. His descriptions of the CA geography and farm life are incredible. If you love the outdoors and have a special place in your heart for the earth those 2 books will move you to another place.

I cannot recommend them enough
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Frosty
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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I read "Of Mice and Men" and "In Dubious Battle" from this book before I returned it to the library. The second novel was a suggestion from my brother. Both books immerse you in the life of travelling workers in the depression era US. Everyone knows "OF Mice and Men", and it was suprisingly short, but so poingniently told the story of struggle and hope. "In Dubious Battle" was a suprise. It presents the disfunction and cruelty of a labor strike during the depression. Dissects communism, socialism, and capitalism while never calling one or the other by its name, and all through the story of men and women trying to survive and ultimately do what is "best" for themselves and others. Amazing.
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Profile Image for Kimberly .
Fiqqy98
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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I consider it quite a strange experience to read Steinbeck, it is not that he has an awkward style or is difficult to read; it is rather the opposite, as qua language use he is sober, the depth he achieves though is tantalizing and as such when reading these works we are offered clever constructs of social realism that show both the world and the individual as mutually wrapped up in one another.
Especially outstanding here are “In a dubious battle” and “Of mice and men”. The former deals with a communist group trying to fight for the rights of apple pickers in California and immediately we are confronted with a world that cannot hold revolution. It is not so much that the farm-lords are doing everything possible to quell rebellion, much rather it is the workers themselves who cannot hold the revolution within their own self and as such the battle is not so much against the system, but more importantly against the working-group itself.
“Of mice and men” is also about a battle but of a very different kind; and though there is an obvious worker-setting, the story is not as much a work of Social Realism, but much rather something that may be called ‘Socio-Metaphysical Realism’ as it does not deal with the standard fare of social issues and interactions. The beauty of the story is that in so short a number of pages and so simple a tale, Steinbeck really manages to go deep into the human psyche and deliver an emotional punch that is much different than an operatic apotheosis, but works more like a slow fading, like the dying embers of a fire.
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Profile Image for Kimberly .
Azure_
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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The Pastures of Heaven - interesting compilation of fable-like stories - harsh reality mixed with serendipity - irony between beauty of environs and ugliness of human occupation, framed in the social structure of an early rural town in California. Easily digestible as separate themes, but challenging to fit into a unifying idea as a book.

To a God Unknown - very visceral descriptions of man's real or imagined relationship with nature - seems accessible to a wide range of audience, from appreciative of a sunset to tree-hugging paganistic naturalist - and by the end Steinbeck's ability to grip the reader with empathy sort of makes you want to walk off into the woods with Walden and a pocketknife to ponder your place with nature for a few weeks.
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