The Grapes of Wrath - 75th Edition by John Steinbeck (Hardcover)

About the Book

"Based on the special fiftieth-anniversary edition of the novel which reproduced the original text published in 1939 by The Viking Press"--P. xi.

Book Synopsis

The 75th anniversary hardcover edition of Steinbeck's crowning literary achievement

First published in 1939, Steinbeck's Pulitzer Prize-winning epic of the Great Depression chronicles the Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s and tells the story of one Oklahoma farm family, the Joads, driven from their homestead and forced to travel west to the promised land of California. Out of their trials and their repeated collisions against the hard realities of an America divided into haves and have-nots evolves a drama that is intensely human yet majestic in its scale and moral vision, elemental yet plainspoken, tragic but ultimately stirring in its human dignity.

A portrait of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless, of one man's fierce reaction to injustice, and of one woman's stoical strength, the novel captures the horrors of the Great Depression and probes the very nature of equality and justice in America. As Don DeLillo has claimed, Steinbeck "shaped a geography of conscience" with this novel where "there is something at stake in every sentence." Beyond that--for emotional urgency, evocative power, sustained impact, prophetic reach, and continued controversy--The Grapes of Wrath is perhaps the most American of American classics.

To commemorate the book's 75th anniversary, this volume is modeled on the first edition, featuring the original cover illustration by Elmer Hader and specially designed endpapers by Michael Schwab.

Review Quotes

"One comes away moved, indignant, protesting, pitying. A fiery document of protest and compassion, as a story that had to be told, as a book that must be read."
--Louis Kronenberger, The Nation

"It is Steinbeck's best novel, i.e., his toughest and tenderest, his roughest written and most mellifluous, his most realistic and, in its ending, his most melodramatic, his angriest and most idyllic. It is great in the way that Uncle Tom's Cabin was great. One of the most impassioned and exciting books of the year."
--Time

"Throughout I've tried to make the reader participate in the actuality, what he takes from it will be scaled entirely on his own depth or hollowness. There are 5 layers in this book; a reader will find as many as he can and he won't find more than he has in himself."
--John Steinbeck

About the Author

John Steinbeck (1902-1968) was born in Salinas, California, and died in New York City. He remains one of the most prolific and influential authors of his generation and won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962.