Portable Steinbeck : Revised Edition

by Steinbeck, John (Author); Covici, Pascal (Editor/introduction)

• ISBN13: 9780140150025
• ISBN10: 0140150021
• Edition: Revised
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1976-10-01
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)

Summary

He wrote about poor people struggling to survive and about dispossessed people grappling for a piece of land they could call their own. He wrote about inarticulate men groping to express truths "locked in wordlessness." He wrote about America-the land and the people-as though it were one living organism, and he did so more eloquently than anyone since Walt Whitman. In an extraordinarily prolific career that lasted from 1929 to the 1960s, John Steinbeck created stories and characters that, in the words of Pascal Covici, Jr., this volume's editor, combine "the gusto of Homer … along with the thoughtfulness of Emerson." The Portable Steinbeck is a grand sampling of this writer's most important works. Here are the complete novels Of Mice and Men and The Red Pony together with self-contained excerpts from The Long Valley, Tortilla Flat, In Dubious Battle (celebrated as "America's best strike novel"), The Grapes of Wrath, his epic of the Okie migration of the Great Depression, Cannery Row, East of Eden, Travels with Charley and other books; two previously uncollected short stories; and the 1962 Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech. The result is a collection that overflows with Steinbeck's prodigal richness of language, humor that is by turns broad and deadpan sly, and empathy for even the most flawed and suffering of his characters.

Table of Contents

Introduction	xi
Pascal Covici, Jr.
Biographical and Bibliographical Notes	xxxi
FROM THE LONG VALLEY
Flight	3	(23)
The Snake	26	(13)
The Harness	39	(17)
The Chrysanthemums	56	(17)
FROM THE PASTURES OF HEAVEN
Tularecito	73	(15)
Molly Morgan	88	(21)
Pat Humbert's	109	(24)
FROM TORTILLA FLAT
Danny	133	(7)
Pilon	140	(6)
The Pirate	146	(17)
The Treasure Hunt	163	(20)
Tortillas and Beans	183	(12)
FROM IN DUBIOUS BATTLE
A Future We Can't Foresee	195	(32)
OF MICE AND MEN
The Complete Novel	227	(100)
THE RED PONY
The Gift	327	(32)
The Great Mountains	359	(16)
The Promise	375	(22)
The Leader of the People	397	(20)
FROM THE LONG VALLEY
Breakfast	417	(6)
FROM THE GRAPES OF WRATH
The Turtle	423	(3)
``The Last Clear Definite Function of Man''	426	(4)
Migrant People	430	(10)
Life and Death	440	(13)
Breakfast and Work	453	(14)
Ma and Tom	467	(8)
The Flood	475	(6)
FROM SEA OF CORTEZ
``Is'' Thinking and ``Living Into''	481	(23)
The Pearl of La Paz	504	(2)
Parable of Laziness	506	(3)
Differences	509	(4)
``It Might Be So''	513	(8)
FROM ``ABOUT ED RICKETTS''
``Knowing Ed Ricketts...''	521	(9)
``Speculative Metaphysics''	530	(5)
FROM CANNERY ROW
Frog Hunt	535	(18)
FROM EAST OF EDEN
Adam and His Sons	553	(29)
Choice and Responsibility	582	(23)
Technology and a Technocrat	605	(9)
Timshel	614	(5)
TWO UNCOLLECTED STORIES
The Affair at 7, rue de M	619	(10)
How Mr. Hogan Robbed a Bank	629	(14)
FROM TRAVELS WITH CHARLEY IN SEARCH OF AMERICA
People	643	(9)
Texan Ostentation	652	(15)
Southern Troubles	667	(14)
Last Leg	681	(6)
THE LANGUAGE OF AWARENESS
From East of Eden	687	(3)
Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech	690