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East of Eden
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East of Eden Paperback - 2003

by John Steinbeck

This sprawling and often brutal novel, set in the rich farmlands of California's Salinas Valley, follows the intertwined destinies of two families--the Trasks and the Hamiltons--whose generations helplessly reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel. "A strange and original work of art".--New York Times Book Review.


About this book

East of Eden is a novel by John Steinbeck, published in 1952. It tells the multi-generational story of two families, the Hamiltons and the Trasks, in California's Salinas Valley. The novel explores themes of good and evil, love and hate, and the human capacity for both. It also delves into the nature of family dynamics, inheritance, and the American dream. The characters are complex and nuanced, and the novel's narrative structure allows for a deep exploration of their motivations and emotions. East of Eden is considered one of Steinbeck's most ambitious works and a masterpiece of American literature.

Summary

"When the book club ended a year ago, I said I would bring it back when I found the book that was moving…and this is a great one. I read it for myself for the first time and then I had some friends read it. And we think it might be the best novel we've ever read!" —Oprah Winfrey

In his journal, Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck called East of Eden "the first book," and indeed it has the primordial power and simplicity of myth. Set in the rich farmland of California's Salinas Valley, this sprawling and often brutal novel follows the intertwined destinies of two families—the Trasks and the Hamiltons—whose generations helplessly reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel.

The masterpiece of Steinbeck’s later years, East of Eden is a work in which Steinbeck created his most mesmerizing characters and explored his most enduring themes: the mystery of identity, the inexplicability of love, and the murderous consequences of love's absence.

From the publisher

A masterpiece of Biblical scope, and the magnum opus of one of America's most enduring authors, in a deluxe Centennial edition In his journal, Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck called East of Eden "the first book," and indeed it has the primordial power and simplicity of myth. Set in the rich farmland of California's Salinas Valley, this sprawling and often brutal novel follows the intertwined destinies of two families--the Trasks and the Hamiltons--whose generations helplessly reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel. The masterpiece of Steinbeck's later years, East of Eden is a work in which Steinbeck created his most mesmerizing characters and explored his most enduring themes: the mystery of identity, the inexplicability of love, and the murderous consequences of love's absence. Adapted for the 1955 film directed by Elia Kazan introducing James Dean, and read by thousands as the book that brought Oprah's Book Club back, East of Eden has remained vitally present in American culture for over half a century. This Centennial edition, specially designed to commemorate one hundred years of Steinbeck, features french flaps and deckle-edged pages. For more than sixty-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,500 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translato

First Edition Identification

East of Eden’s true first edition (Viking Press; New York, 1952) is a limited edition of only 1,500 copies signed by Steinbeck. This signed limited first edition has dark green boards and came in a slipcase. 750 copies of this signed limited first edition were for private distribution. The original cloth binding is stamped in gilt and brown, in a faux-wood grain slipcase. 

The first trade edition states "First published by The Viking Press in September 1952" on the copyright page with no statements of subsequent printings, and the year 1952 on the title page. Boards are light green. Dust jacket has Steinbeck's photo on the rear with no blurbs. The first state has "bite" on page 281, line 38.


Details

  • Title East of Eden
  • Author John Steinbeck
  • Binding Paperback
  • Edition Centennial Editi
  • Pages 608
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Penguin Books, New York
  • Date 2003-06-18
  • ISBN 9780142004234 / 0142004235
  • Weight 1.4 lbs (0.64 kg)
  • Dimensions 8.4 x 5.6 x 1.7 in (21.34 x 14.22 x 4.32 cm)
  • Ages 18 to UP years
  • Grade levels 13 - UP
  • Reading level 700
  • Themes
    • Chronological Period: 1900-1949
    • Cultural Region: Western U.S.
    • Cultural Region: West Coast
    • Demographic Orientation: Rural
    • Geographic Orientation: California
    • Topical: Family
  • Library of Congress subjects Domestic fiction, Historical fiction
  • Library of Congress Catalog Number 2001054433
  • Dewey Decimal Code FIC

Media reviews

"The book that brought the book club back!"
—Oprah Winfrey

"A novel planned on the grandest possible scale...One of those occasions when a writer has aimed high and then summoned every ounce of energy, talent, seriousness, and passion of which he was capable...It is an entirely interesting and impressive book."
The New York Herald Tribune

"A fantasia and myth...a strange and original work of art."
The New York Times Book Review

"A moving, crying pageant with wilderness strengths."
—Carl Sandburg

About the author

John Steinbeck, born in Salinas, California, in 1902, grew up in a fertile agricultural valley, about twenty-five miles from the Pacific Coast. Both the valley and the coast would serve as settings for some of his best fiction. In 1919 he went to Stanford University, where he intermittently enrolled in literature and writing courses until he left in 1925 without taking a degree. During the next five years he supported himself as a laborer and journalist in New York City, all the time working on his first novel, Cup of Gold (1929).

After marriage and a move to Pacific Grove, he published two California books, The Pastures of Heaven (1932) and To a God Unknown (1933), and worked on short stories later collected in The Long Valley (1938). Popular success and financial security came only with Tortilla Flat (1935), stories about Monterey's paisanos. A ceaseless experimenter throughout his career, Steinbeck changed courses regularly. Three powerful novels of the late 1930s focused on the California laboring class: In Dubious Battle (1936), Of Mice and Men (1937), and the book considered by many his finest, The Grapes of Wrath (1939). The Grapes of Wrath won both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize in 1939.

Early in the 1940s, Steinbeck became a filmmaker with The Forgotten Village (1941) and a serious student of marine biology with Sea of Cortez (1941). He devoted his services to the war, writing Bombs Away (1942) and the controversial play-novelette The Moon is Down (1942). Cannery Row (1945), The Wayward Bus (1948), another experimental drama, Burning Bright (1950), and The Log from the Sea of Cortez (1951) preceded publication of the monumental East of Eden (1952), an ambitious saga of the Salinas Valley and his own family's history.

The last decades of his life were spent in New York City and Sag Harbor with his third wife, with whom he traveled widely. Later books include Sweet Thursday (1954), The Short Reign of Pippin IV: A Fabrication (1957), Once There Was a War (1958), The Winter of Our Discontent (1961), Travels with Charley in Search of America (1962), America and Americans (1966), and the posthumously published Journal of a Novel: The East of Eden Letters (1969), Viva Zapata! (1975), The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights (1976), and Working Days: The Journals of The Grapes of Wrath (1989).

Steinbeck received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1962, and, in 1964, he was presented with the United States Medal of Freedom by President Lyndon B. Johnson. Steinbeck died in New York in 1968. Today, more than thirty years after his death, he remains one of America's greatest writers and cultural figures.

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