# Of Mice and Men - Paperback

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by **John Steinbeck** (Author), **Susan Shillinglaw** (Introduction by)

**A controversial tale of friendship and tragedy during the Great Depression**

A Penguin Classic

Over seventy-five years since its first publication, Steinbeck's tale of commitment, loneliness, hope, and loss remains one of America's most widely read and taught novels. An unlikely pair, George and Lennie, two migrant workers in California during the Great Depression, grasp for their American Dream. They hustle work when they can, living a hand-to-mouth existence. For George and Lennie have a plan: to own an acre of land and a shack they can call their own. When they land jobs on a ranch in the Salinas Valley, the fulfillment of their dream seems to be within their grasp. But even George cannot guard Lennie from the provocations, nor predict the consequences of Lennie's unswerving obedience to the things George taught him.

_Of Mice and Men_ represents an experiment in form, which Steinbeck described as "a kind of playable novel, written in a novel form but so scened and set that it can be played as it stands." A rarity in American letters, it achieved remarkable success as a novel, a Broadway play, and three acclaimed films. This edition features an introduction by Susan Shillinglaw, one of today's leading Steinbeck scholars.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 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 translators.

### Author Biography

****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.  
**  
Susan Shillinglaw** is a professor of English San Jose State University. She is the author of _On Reading the Grapes of Wrath_ and _Carol and John Steinbeck: Portrait of a Marriage_.

**Number of Pages:** 144

**Dimensions:** 0.39 x 7.8 x 5.06 IN

**Publication Date:** February 01, 1994

**Accelerated Reader:**

**Quiz Name:** Of Mice and Men

**Interest Level:** Upper Grades, 9-12

**Reading Level:** 4.5

**Point Value:** 4

## Details

- **Price:** 16.0 USD
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- **Type:** Books
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## Variants

| Variant | Price | Available |
|---------|-------|-----------|
| Default Title | 16.00 USD | In stock |

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- Of Mice and Men - Paperback
- Of Mice and Men - Paperback

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