John Steinbeck

John Steinbeck

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).

John Steinbeck's Nobel Prize-winning tale of commitment, loneliness, hope, and loss—now an eBook enhanced with exclusive content, including an interview with James Earl Jones, for the ultimate educational experience.

An intimate portrait of two men who cherish the slim bond between them and the dream they share in a world marred by petty tyranny, misunderstanding, jealousy, and callousness. Clinging to each other in their loneliness and alienation, George and his simple-minded friend Lennie dream, as drifters will, of a place to call their own—a couple of acres and a few pigs, chickens, and rabbits back in Hill Country where land is cheap. But after they come to work on a ranch in the fertile Salinas Valley of California, their hopes, like "the best laid schemes o'mice an' men," begin to go awry. A rarity in American letters, Of Mice and Men achieved remarkable success as a novel, a Broadway play, and two acclaimed films.

Now enhanced with additional content, Of Mice and Men: Amplified allows the reader to delve into one of Steinbeck's most beloved novels as never before.

Of Mice and Men: Amplified includes the following:

• An introduction and suggested further reading by Susan Shillinglaw, a professor of English at San José State University and Scholar-in-Residence at the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas
• A video slideshow of historic 1930s Dust Bowl images that captures the period of several Steinbeck works by American documentary photographer Dorothea Lange
• The poem "To a Mouse, On Turning Her Up in Her Nest with the Plough, November 1785" by Robert Burns (the original source of Steinbeck's title Of Mice and Men)
• Stills from the 1992 film adaptation starring Gary Sinise and John Malkovich
• The 1962 Nobel Banquet Speech by John Steinbeck
• An exclusive Q&A with renowned composer and librettist Carlisle Floyd on Of Mice and Men as an American classic opera
• An exclusive audio interview with award-winning actor James Earl Jones on his stage performances in Of Mice and Men.