East of Eden. New York: Viking Press, 1952. First Edition. Pp 602. Publisher’s green cloth boards, title lettered in black to upper cover & on label to spine. A nice bright copy. Lacking the dust jacket.

Steinbeck’s ambitious and sprawling novel, which he considered his magnum opus, retells the Biblical story of Cain and Abel against the backdrop of California’s Salinas Valley.

Spanning three generations, the novel follows the intertwined fates of the Hamilton and Trask families, exploring themes of guilt, freedom, and the eternal struggle between good and evil. The book was a immediate commercial success and was later adapted into the iconic 1955 film directed by Elia Kazan, starring James Dean.

Steinbeck said (to his editor/publisher, Pat Covici) of East of Eden ‘I have written each book as an exercise, as practice for the one to come. And this is the one to come. There is nothing beyond this book-nothing follows it. It must contain all in the world I know and it must have everything in it of which I am capable.’