STEINBECK, John

“Muscles aching to work, minds aching to create - this is man.”

Born into a relatively well off family in California at the turn of the century, Steinbeck was always interested in the lives of those who worked the land and his novels can be classified as social novels dealing with the economic problems of rural labour.  The most famous of all of these is undoubtedly The Grapes of Wrath, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1940.  His oeuvre includes Of Mice and Men, which Steinbeck described as being “an exercise in humility” and East of Eden, which is undoubtedly his most personal book.

He was awarded the Nobel Prize for  Literature in 1962 “for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humour and keen social perception”

In 1998 The Modern Library included The Grapes of Wrath in its list of the hundred Best Twentieth Century Novels.

Please scroll down to see our current stock of Steinbeck first editions.