John Steinbeck was never content to repeat himself, and his
restless search for new forms and fresh subject matter is fully
evident in the books of his later years. This volume collects four
novels that exhibit the full range of his gift, along with a travel
book that has become one of his most enduringly popular works. In
The Wayward Bus (1947), Steinbeck leads a group of ill-matched
passengers representing a spectrum of social types and classes,
stranded by a washed-out bridge, on a circuitous journey that
exposes cruelties, self-deceptions, and unsuspected moral
strengths. The tone ranges from boisterous comedy to trenchant
satirical observation of postwar America. Burning Bright (1950), an
allegory set against shifting backgrounds (circus, sea, farm) and
revolving around the fear of sterility and the desire for
self-perpetuation, marks Steinbeck's involvement with the drama in
its fusion of the forms of novel and play. Sweet Thursday (1954)
marks Steinbeck's return, in a mood of sometimes frothy comedy, to
the characters and milieu of his earlier Cannery Row. A love story
set against the background of the local brothel, the Bear Flag,
Sweet Thursday is for all its intimations of melancholy one of the
most lighthearted of Steinbeck's books. It was subsequently adapted
by Rodgers and Hammerstein into their musical Pipe Dream.
Steinbeck's final novel, The Winter of Our Discontent (1961) is set
in an old Long Island whaling town modeled on Sag Harbor, where he
had been spending time since 1953. The book breaks new ground in
its depiction of the crass commercialism of contemporary America,
and its impact on a protagonist with traditionalist values who is
appalled but finally tempted by the encroaching sleaziness. Travels
with Charley in Search of America (1962) was Steinbeck's last
published book. A record of his experiences and observations as he
drove around America in a pickup truck, accompanied by his standard
poodle Charley, it is filled with engaging, often humorous
description and comes to a powerful climax in an encounter with
racist demonstrators in New Orleans. LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an
independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to
preserve our nation's literary heritage by publishing, and keeping
permanently in print, America's best and most significant writing.
The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to
date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length,
feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are
printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.
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