East of Eden. by Steinbeck, John - 1952

New York: The Viking Press, 1952. First Edition, First State. Octavo, green cloth (hardcover), red spine label, 602 pp. Very Good, with light foxing to covers and page edges; in a Good+, mylar protected dust jacket with edgewear that includes light chipping. Photographs gladly provided upon request. From dust jacket: ...East of Eden is an American saga, running in time from the Civil War to the First World War, in place from a Connecticut farm to a California valley. Essentially, it is the story of one family, the Trasks -- a father and his twin sons and their errant mother. What happens to the Trasks, against the background of what is happening to others, gives the book its storytelling drive and also its human significance. Here is the infinite variety of life itself: scenes of viciousness and of deep tenderness, passages of violent brutality side by side with stretches of cheerful contentment. There is heartbreak as well as comedy; meanness and corruption on one hand, common kindness on the other. Its concern for individuals is intimate, its humanity broad. The mood is by turns historic and personal, reminiscent and inventive. Within the novel’s flexible frame the author finds room for lyrical flights and leisurely digressions that most writers would not dare permit themselves, while at other points he writes with a staccato tenseness equaled only by the best of the “hard-boiled” school. The scope of East of Eden can hardly be suggested by an outline of the story. Adam Trask brings his strange wife, in 1900, to settle in the Salinas Valley. John Steinbeck’s own forebears, the Hamiltons -- a wonderfully gusty and varied crew -- had been in the valley for years before, and through them we already know its history, its colors and its moods, and are at home in it when the Trasks arrive. We also know the story of the calculating girl whom Adam had found on his Connecticut doorstep and married. After twin sons are born Cathy leaves, to return to a career more familiar to her, and eventually to become the fabulous Kate, owner of Salinas’s fanciest brothel. Cathy is possibly one of the most fascinating hateful characters in modern fiction. Her story might have been a novel in itself. The rich and respected Adam, blighted within, rears his sons with the help of a worldly-wise Chinese and with friendly advice from the Hamiltons. As the boys grow older, the inevitable disclosure threatens, and the reader watches with mounting tension to see how Aron, the ‘good’ son, and Caleb, who carries the strains of both good and evil, will stand up under the blow. Along with these, there are a dozen other characters we come to know well. Chief of them are Steinbeck’s Hamilton grandfather, a mellow and inventive Irishman, and his tiny and determined wife; the big-hearted but self-tortured uncle, Tom, who stays on at the ranch; and Aunt Dessie, who lives cheerfully for others. Finally there is the attractive young girl, Abra, who plays a determining role in the lives of the twins. Each is an individual, rounded with life, and the book is an assertion of the individual human soul, with its God-given power to choose between good and evil. In recognizing this burden, the characters take on a stature that makes them spokesmen for the struggling human race.