The work of a great storyteller
With his masterwork, Steinbeck aimed to tell ‘perhaps the greatest story of all – the story of good and evil, of strength and weakness, of love and hate, of beauty and ugliness’. Blending family history and biblical allegory, he draws on the stories of the fall of Adam and Eve and the fatal rivalry of Cain and Abel to recount the intertwined fates of two families living in California’s idyllic Salinas Valley, the Trasks and the Hamiltons, from the beginning of the twentieth century to the close of the First World War. Rich in symbolic artistry and sweeping in scale, the narrative explores universal themes of love, identity and free will to reveal the primordial passions that govern us all, emotional patterns that are repeated, revised or reversed as one generation passes to the next.
In his introduction, Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Dirda writes of Steinbeck’s refusal to be restrained by genre. Ignoring ‘rigidly formed strictures’, he interweaves his plot with autobiography, authorial intrusions and mini-essays to enthralling effect. The result is a richly layered novel that one lives rather than reads, experiencing the story as it builds to one of literature’s most powerfully resonant endings.
Edward Kinsella has contributed 11 arresting illustrations that heighten both the novel’s more dramatic scenes, as well as its poignant, intimate moments. His striking binding design uses natural imagery native to the Salinas Valley – an oak tree and rattlesnake, which is echoed on the slipcase – to reinforce the novel’s thematic symbolism. A gilt top and ribbon marker complete this stunning edition.