Books

First edition, signed limited issue, complete in the publisher's glassine dust jacket and slipcase. The signed limited issue comprised 1,500 unnumbered copies signed by Steinbeck on the limitation page, which notes that 750 of these copies are for private distribution. Steinbeck considered East of Eden as "the story of my country and the story of me" (ANB). The largely autobiographical work was an immediate success and topped the US fiction best-seller list. In Steinbeck's words, it was "much the longest and surely the most difficult work I have ever done... I have put all the things I have wanted to write all my life. This is 'the book'. If it is not good I have fooled myself all the time. I don't mean I will stop but this is a definite milestone and I feel released. Having done this I can do anything I want. Always I had this book waiting to be written" (cited in Benson, p. 697). Octavo. Original green buckram, spine lettered in gilt on brown ground, front cover lettered in gilt, edges red. With original clear glassine dust jacket. Housed in the publisher's wood-finish card slipcase. Book square, firm, and clean; nicks to corners of well-preserved jacket; slipcase rubbed and slightly worn at edges: overall, a fine copy. Goldstone & Payne A32a (noting the slipcase and glassine jacket). Jackson Benson, John Steinbeck, a Writer: A Biography, 1990.

East of Eden is a novel by American author John Steinbeck. Published in September 1952, it is a saga telling the story of two families—the Trasks and the Hamiltons—with a particular focus on the life of Adam Trask, his twin sons Caleb and Aron, and their complex relationship with each other and their father. The novel explores themes of depravity, beneficence, love, and redemption, and it vividly captures the rural Salinas Valley in California at the turn of the 20th century. Steinbeck considered 'East of Eden' to be his magnum opus.