John Steinbeck: Travels with Charley and Later Novels ... (ISBN 1598530046)

Book 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. Robert DeMott, co-editor, is the Edwin and Ruth Kennedy Distinguished Professor at Ohio University and the author of Steinbeck's Typewriter, an award-winning book of critical essays. Brian Railsback, co-editor, is dean of the Honors College at Western Carolina University and the author of Parallel Expeditions: Charles Darwin and the Art of John Steinbeck.

Not enough:
This review refers to the total of the 4 volumes of the LoA Steinbeck. As a Steinbeck fan and as a reader who really appreciates the LoA volumes, I am not hundred percent satisfied with the set of 4. It is not Steinbeck that I find fault with (though I do not admire everything that he wrote), but the text selection: the series is short by 1 volume. It ought to have integrated the following, in order to be more complete and have the full Steinbeck: The Cup of Gold The War Reporting Viva Zapata (the script and the essay) The Russian Journal The Short Reign of King Pippin The Journal of East of Eden (which is better than the novel itself, believe me!) Maybe we can talk the editors into adding a supplementary Steinbeck volume to their otherwise beautiful collection?

Fititng Conclusion to Series:
This volume is up to the LOA's customary magnificient standards. This is not Steinbeck's best work (although I persist in viewing "Sweet Thursday" as under-valued), but still worth every penny. Steinbeck fans should have this on their shelves. DeMott's previous editorial work on The Grapes of Wrath establishes him as the editor of choice for any edition, and these Library of America editions are becoming, justifiably, the "standard" texts.

Steinbeck is Better than Alcohol!!!:
John Steinbeck should be read and studied by every red-blooded American! Everything the guy wrote is gold. No better American writer ever!!! Read everything he ever composed and thank yourself for doing it!