Author | John Steinbeck |
---|---|
Language | English |
Genre | Short story collection |
Publisher | Viking Press |
Publication date | 1938 |
Publication place | United States |
Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
OCLC | 940263143 |
The Long Valley is a collection of short fiction by John Steinbeck. Most of the stories appeared originally in literary periodicals, and were first collected by Viking Press in 1938. [1] [2]
Ranked among Steinbeck's "finest and best-known" fiction, these are among the most frequently anthologized of Steinbeck's stories, widely read by university undergraduates and high school students. [3] [4] Author and social critic Andre Gide declared that several stories in The Long Valley "equaled or surpassed" those of Russian author Anton Checkov. [5]
"The Murder" and "The Promise" were selected for the O. Henry Prize anthology for short fiction in 1934 and 1938, respectively. [6] [7] [8]
The literary periodical in which a story first appeared is indicated below. [9] [10]
The stories in the collections were written, with the exception of "St. Katy the Virgin," between the spring of 1933 and summer of 1934. All of them, except "Flight," appeared in literary journals previous to being collected in The Long Valley. [15] [16]
Covici-Friede, which had published Steinbeck's successful novellas Tortilla Flat (1935) and Of Mice and Men (1937), was facing bankruptcy in 1937. At their request, Steinbeck attempted to quickly assemble the stories that would comprise The Long Valley. Covici-Friede issued a limited edition of three works: "The Gift," "The Great Mountain," and "The Promise" entitled The Red Pony shortly before going out of business in July 1938. Pascal Covici moved to Viking Press as senior editor, where The Long Valley was published in September, 1938. [17] [18]
The "long" valley of the title refers to the Salinas Valley of California. Of the 15 stories that comprise the volume, perhaps five or six can be positively identified with this valley. The other tales take place in several regions of California: "Flight" on the Pacific Coast north of Big Sur, "The Snake" on Cannery Row in Monterey, and "The Murder" in the Corral de Tierra. Biographer Richard S. Hughes places "Breakfast" in the San Joaquin or Sacramento valleys and "The Raid" and "The Vigilante" occur in unidentified "outlying small towns.". "The Red Pony" trilogy takes place near the Santa Lucia Mountains, 100 miles (160 km) south of Salinas. "Saint Katy the Virgin," geographically and temporally remote, is set in 14th century Europe. [19]
Critic Stanley Young in The New York Times Book Review (September 25, 1938) offered this measured praise for The Long Valley:
As a group they are neither profound nor passionate stories of great stature—that is, they do not illuminate an age or a people either emotionally or intellectually, and they are occasionally flagrantly sentimental…Yet all have one rare, creative thing: a directness of impression that makes them glow with life, small-scale life though it is. [20]
Literary critic Ralph Thompson]in "Books of the Times" review of September 21, 1938 registers a number of complaints concerning the volume:
The callous Mr. Steinbeck, describing a coldblooded shooting ("The Murder") or a fatal manhunt ("Flight"), is impressive but artificial. The cunning Mr. Steinbeck, dealing with sex symbols ("The Snake") and feminine neuroses ("The White Quail"), is artificial and not impressive…"St. Katy the Virgin" is all right but something of a shock. It is quite as though Ernest Hemingway had come forth with an Uncle Remus story. [21]
Writing in the New Statesman (February 18, 1939) critic John Mair notes a "directness of feeling and expression that is coming to be regarded as distinctively American" in this collection. He adds: "Mr. Steinbeck is not a great writer—he has too little passion for that, and his mind seems too observant to be really creative—but in his own way he is as perfect a craftsman as Hemingway and his disciples." [22]
John Ernst Steinbeck was an American writer. He won the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humor and keen social perception". He has been called "a giant of American letters."
The Grapes of Wrath is an American realist novel written by John Steinbeck and published in 1939. The book won the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and it was cited prominently when Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1962.
Sophomoric humor is any type of humor that is considered silly, immature, or childish. The phrase can be derisive, but is also used to refer to a style or type of comedic act.
The Pastures of Heaven is a short story cycle by John Steinbeck published by Brewer, Warren and Putnam in 1932.
Joseph Moncure March was an American poet, screenwriter, and essayist, best known for his long narrative poems The Wild Party and The Set-Up.
The Red Pony is a film score composed for Lewis Milestone's 1949 production which used John Steinbeck's screenplay based on his 1937 book, The Red Pony. It was composed by Aaron Copland in 1948 at Republic Pictures and an LP was issued of the soundtrack.
The Red Pony is an episodic novella written by American writer John Steinbeck in 1933. The first three chapters were published in magazines from 1933 to 1936. The full book was published in 1937 by Covici Friede. The stories in the book are tales of a boy named Jody Tiflin. The book has four stories about Jody and his life on his father's California ranch. Other main characters include Carl Tiflin – Jody's father; Billy Buck – an expert in horses and a working hand on the ranch; Mrs. Tiflin – Jody's mother; Jody's grandfather – Mrs. Tiflin's father, who has a history of crossing the Oregon Trail, and enjoys telling stories about his experiences; and Gitano – an old man who wishes to die at the Tiflin ranch. Along with these stories, there is a short story at the end of the book titled "Junius Maltby". However, this last story is omitted in the edition published by Penguin Books.
Pascal Avram "Pat" Covici was a Romanian Jewish-American book publisher and editor, best known for his close associations with authors such as John Steinbeck, Saul Bellow, and many more noted American literary figures, mainly through his position at Viking Press.
"The Chrysanthemums" is a short story by American writer John Steinbeck. It was first published in 1937 before being included as part of his collection The Long Valley the following year.
The Log from the Sea of Cortez is an English-language book written by American author John Steinbeck and published in 1951. It details a six-week marine specimen-collecting boat expedition he made in 1940 at various sites in the Gulf of California, with his friend, the marine biologist Ed Ricketts. It is regarded as one of Steinbeck's most important works of non-fiction chiefly because of the involvement of Ricketts, who shaped Steinbeck's thinking and provided the prototype for many of the pivotal characters in his fiction, and the insights it gives into the philosophies of the two men.
Gene Fowler was an American journalist, author, and dramatist.
Burning Bright is a 1950 novella by John Steinbeck written as an experiment with producing a play in novel format. Rather than providing only the dialogue and brief stage directions as would be expected in a play, Steinbeck fleshes out the scenes with details of both the characters and the environment. The intention was to allow the play to be read by the non-theatrical reader while still allowing the dialogue to be lifted and performed with little adaptation by acting companies. While Steinbeck could see that providing little information in the way of physical description or stage direction allowed the director and actors greater freedom and scope for imaginative interpretation, he weighed this against the benefit of making the players aware of the author's intent and making the play accessible to the general reader.
Robert DeMott is an American author, scholar, and editor best known for his influential scholarship on writer John Steinbeck, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for The Grapes of Wrath (1939), and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962.
The Red Pony is a 1949 American Technicolor drama film directed by Lewis Milestone and starring Myrna Loy, Robert Mitchum and Louis Calhern. It is based on John Steinbeck's 1937 novella of the same name. Steinbeck also wrote the screenplay for this film. It was distributed by Republic Pictures.
Tom Boggs was an American poet, editor, and novelist who emerged as a Greenwich Village Bohemian during the Jazz Age of the 1920s.
Robert Oleson Ballou was an American publisher and author.
“The White Quail” is a work of short fiction by John Steinbeck originally appearing in The North American Review, March 1935. The story was first collected in The Long Valley (1938) published by Viking Press.
“The Raid” is a work of short fiction by John Steinbeck originally published in The North American Review, October 1934. The story was first collected in The Long Valley (1938) by Viking Press.
“The Murder” is a work of short fiction by John Steinbeck originally published in The North American Review, April 1934. The story was first collected in The Long Valley (1938) by Viking Press.
"Saint Katy the Virgin" is a work of short fiction by John Steinbeck originally appearing as a limited edition monograph published by Covici-Friede in December 1936. The story was first collected in The Long Valley (1938) by Viking Press.