East of Eden

In the Salinas Valley of California, two families — the Trasks and the Hamiltons — live out a story that Steinbeck understood as nothing less than the story of all human beings: a retelling of the fall of Adam and Eve, and of Cain and Abel, set in American soil and American time. The novel spans three generations, from the Civil War to the First World War, and at its centre is the question that Steinbeck believed was the most important question in human experience: whether a person is capable of choosing good in a fallen world.

Steinbeck considered East of Eden his masterpiece — the book he had been preparing to write his whole life — and the years show. It is vast, ambitious, sometimes imperfect, and completely unmistakable: a novel that carries the weight of a writer’s deepest convictions about what it means to be human and what hope, if any, that leaves us.

One of the great American novels — demanding, rewarding, and unforgettable. In a beautiful Penguin Modern Classics edition. Published by Penguin Modern Classics.