Low Price Guarantee
We Take School POs
John Steinbeck: Travels with Charley and Later Novels 1947-1962 (Loa #170): The Wayward Bus / Burning Bright / Sweet Thursday / The Winter of Our Disc
Contributor(s): Steinbeck, John (Author), Demott, Robert (Editor), Railsback, Brian (Editor)

View larger image

ISBN: 1598530046     ISBN-13: 9781598530049
Publisher: Library of America
Retail: $40.00OUR PRICE: $29.20  
  Buy 25 or more:OUR PRICE: $26.80   Save More!
  Buy 100 or more:OUR PRICE: $25.60   Save More!


  WE WILL NOT BE UNDERSOLD!   Click here for our low price guarantee

Binding Type: Hardcover
Published: February 2007
Qty:

Annotation: The Library of American completes its authoritative four-volume John Steinbeck edition with this collection of the later works of an American master. It includes "The Wayward Bus," published in 1947 and spans his works through his last published book, 1962Us "Travels with Charley."

Click for more in this series: Library of America
Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- Fiction | Literary
- Fiction | Small Town & Rural
Dewey: FIC
LCCN: 2006048757
Age Level: 18-UP
Grade Level: 13-UP
Series: Library of America
Physical Information: 1.2" H x 5.22" W x 8.14" L (1.36 lbs) 1125 pages
Features: Bibliography, Bookmark, Dust Cover, Price on Product, Table of Contents
Review Citations: Library Journal 02/01/2007 pg. 108
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:
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.

 
Customer ReviewsSubmit your own review
 
To tell a friend about this book, you must Sign In First!