John Steinbeck

Library Of America has all of his works, I think.

I think the only John Steinbeck work FS has published is Travels with Charley

>1 EclecticIndulgence:
I have FS Travels with Charley and FS The Grapes of Wrath (1998) Come to think of it, I still haven’t read the GoW…

The Grapes of Wrath was assigned as collateral reading back in high school English class, with a stern front cover of a female picking grape , and I couldn't get through the first page. had steer clear of John Steinbeck until I read FS Travels with Charley , that man is a genius in putting his imaginative mind into words, without over manipulate the technique of narrative , convey an exalting artistic expression.

If I can find a fine press edition of The Grapes of Wrath...

Actually, I can understand why the Folio Society might not have created an edition, but I have always enjoyed Steinbeck's re-telling of the Arthurian myths -- The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights He died before it was done, but it's an interesting work all on its own.

I don't know for sure, by the way, but doesn't the Folio Society focus primarily on the British and western European authors?

> 8

It might certainly seem like that, and I would hazard a guess that the vast majority of fiction titles published by FS would hail from Great Britain. But I think the market has changed significantly over the past decade or two, and apparently the FS now has about the same number of members in North America as in the UK. Certainly, it is noticeable that over the past few years more and more American authors are being released; witness from the latest prospectus Saul Bellow, Joseph Heller, Herman Melville and Mark Twain. They've also recently ventured into Faulkner territory, so perhaps we may see more of his novels forthcoming?

I do believe that sometimes copyright issues create problems, especially with more recent writers. I've read somewhere that this is why the FS has never done any novels by Ernest Hemingway, only a selection of his short stories.

>9 groeng: I think there has been a shift in recent years, although worth noting that FS has published the major novels of Hemingway (A Farewell To Arms, To Have And Have Not, For Whom The Bell Tolls, The Old Man And The Sea, and The Sun Also Rises).

Hmm, I wonder if there actually has been a shift, or whether simply the growing number of annual publications mean that more non-European volumes are being published which gives the impression of a shift. I have done some rough and ready research, and whilst it would need a bit more rigour to be conclusive, it suggests that FS remains very much a Anglo-centric publisher, perhaps not hugely surprising given its roots (and given that its successful global reach has been built on what it has traditionally published). If we take a snapshot of one year each decade since FS launched, we see the origins of each publication as follows (counting box sets as a single publication):

1950

UK - 5
Europe (Non-UK) - 2
US - 1
Latin / Greek - 1
Other - 0

1960

UK - 11
Europe (Non-UK) - 5
US - 1
Latin / Greek - 0
Other - 3

1970

UK - 12
Europe (Non-UK) - 3
US - 0
Latin / Greek - 1
Other - 0

1980

UK - 11
Europe (Non-UK) - 3
US - 2
Latin / Greek - 0
Other - 1

1990

UK - 22
Europe (Non-UK) - 1
US - 2
Latin / Greek - 2
Other - 0
Mixed (Anthology) - 1

2000

UK - 28
Europe (Non-UK) - 8
US - 5
Latin / Greek - 1
Other - 0
Mixed (Anthology) - 2

2010

UK - 69
Europe (Non-UK) - 11
US - 7
Latin / Greek - 3
Other - 4
Mixed (Anthology) - 2

EDITED (on a lazy Sunday afternoon) to add the most recent year's data I have available, that for 2011. Perhaps as a result of the financial climate, we saw far fewer publications than in 2010, but still more than in the vast majority of years since 1947. This does suggest we might be starting to see a small shift towards US publications as a proportion of total output:

2011

UK - 31
Europe (Non-UK) - 7
US - 8
Latin / Greek - 3
Other - 3

>9 groeng: The FS published a box set of Hemingway's novels in 1999 , the set consisted of:

The Old Man and the Sea
For Whom the Bell Tolls
To Have and To Have Not
A Farewell to Arms
The Sun Also Rises

>7 kafkachen: The Limited Editions Club published a "special publication" of the Grapes in 1940, limited to 1146 copies. There are several copies available on ABEBooks, but they are quite pricey.

> 1,3,6

Tough luck, even if you don't like the LOA, get them, and read them all. Right now! Better yet, go to

http://www.gallimard.fr/searchinternet/advanced?all_title=John+Steinbeck&Sea...

and get them all in French. It's the least you could do! :)

Heron editions in collaboration with Edito-Service published a complete illustrated set of Steinbeck's works, in an attractive gilt-patterned beige 'kidron' binding with sewn-in ribbons, in the 1970s. They're available second hand usually at reasonable prices.

> 3

I don't really like the aesthetics of LOA.

Maybe so, though I think it is hard to surpass the scholarly presentations of their volumes.

As far as aesthetics goes, I love the uniformity of their volumes on my shelves, much akin to Modern Library editions with slipcases.

The construction of their books is really first class too.