John Steinbeck (1902≡968) born in Salinas, California, grew up in a fertile agricultural valley, about twenty-five miles from the Pacific Coast. 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 translators. With more than 1,800 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. This edition features an introduction by David Wyatt.įor more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. Adapted for the 1955 film directed by Elia Kazan introducing James Dean and read by thousands as the book that brought Oprahs Book Club back, East of Eden has remained vitally present in American culture for over half a century. The masterpiece of Steinbecks 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.

Set in the rich farmland of Californias Salinas Valley, this sprawling and often brutal novel follows the intertwined destinies of two familiesthe Trasks and the Hamiltonswhose generations helplessly reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel. 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. East of Eden is a powerful and vastly ambitious novel that is at once a family saga and a modern retelling of the Book of Genesis.A masterpiece of Biblical scope, and the magnum opus of one of Americas most enduring authors One boy thrives, nurtured by the love of all those around him the other grows up in loneliness, enveloped by a mysterious darkness.įirst published in 1952, East of Eden is the 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 loves absence. But the birth of his twins, Cal and Aron, brings his wife to the brink of madness, and Adam is left alone to raise his boys to manhood. Set in the rich farmland of Californias Salinas Valley, this sprawling and often brutal novel follows the intertwined destinies of two familiesthe Trasks and the Hamiltonswhose generations helplessly reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel.Īdam Trask came to California from the East to farm and raise his family on the new, rich land. In his journal, John Steinbeck called East of Eden the first book, and indeed it has the primordial power and simplicity of myth.

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