The Long Valley

Octavo [204 x 127] of 303 pp.; publisher's half gray cloth binding, illustrated dust jacket.

Steinbeck, John. The Long Valley.
New York, The Viking Press, 1938.

First edition of this collection of short stories set in and about California's Salinas Valley, where Steinbeck was born.

Published in the wake of the success of Of Mice and Men, this selection of short fiction by John Steinbeck is a bittersweet journey through his beloved Salinas Valley.

Vignettes of farm life in the western US—sometimes tragic, sometimes beautiful—are interwoven with themes such as loss of innocence, racism, and keeping up appearances. Stories in this collection include "The Chrysanthemums" and "The Red Pony" novella; also included is "Flight," published here for the first time, making Steinbeck "one of the first American writers to portray sympathetic Hispanic characters" (Laws).

In his exploration of the tensions in rural life between town and country, laborers and owners, Steinbeck gives voice to the lonely and outcast individuals who fall outside the established norms.

“The Red Pony set the artistic and thematic tone for the volume.

With the aim of attempting “to make the reader create the boy’s mind for himself”, Steinbeck intended to explore “the desolation of loss”. By confronting the desolation of loss, one also focuses the challenges that lead to growth.

With such developments in artistic technique, it is indeed accurate to call the stories of The Long Valley “breakthrough” works for Steinbeck. He tested his artistic skills to the limit, exploring and perfecting new ways of telling the story and techniques to use in the telling. These works are the artistic soil from which the novels of the 1930s grew. They are so important to Steinbeck’s canon that it is surprising that for so long the critical

The short stories of The Long Valley continue to attract scholarly attention. Were that not the case, however, the stories would endure in importance for the simple fact of reader interest. Steinbeck’s primary aim as a writer was always to tell a good story. The Long Valley testifies to this aim. The general public as well as those in academic settings return to these stories over and over. It is primarily there, in the hearts and minds of individual readers, that the significance of these stories persists” (J. H. Timmerman)…

All the short stories in The Long Valley are set in Central California, the birthplace of John Steinbeck (1902-1968).

A bright copy preserved in publisher’s binding with dust jacket.