1961 Book Winter of Our Discontent Steinbeck First Edition Hardcover

1961 Book "Winter of Our Discontent" by Steinbeck 1st Edition

Hardcover book, no dust jacket

New condition

Copyright 1961 by John Steinbeck

First edition

Published by Viking Books, New York

281 pages

8½ by 5½ inches    

The shipping charge includes insurance  

"The Winter of our Discontent was published in 1961, just before Steinbeck received the Nobel Prize in 1962. The story is set in the late 1950s in New Baytown, a small (fictitious) New York -New England town which, Steinbeck tells us, had flourished during the whaling days of the mid-19th century. The main protagonist of the book is Ethan Allen Hawley. Ethan  is descended from early pirates and whaling captains. His family had lost its capital through speculative business ventures during WW II and Ethan, with has backround and his Harvard education, is reduced to working as a clerk in a small grocery store he once owned."

"The book describes the deteriorations of Ethan's life as he gradually loses his integrity and succumbs to temptations to lift his life, and the lives of his family members, from its materially humble state to a state consistent with Ethan's felt family heritage and education and with the desire of his family for material comfort. The story is sad and told in a style mixing irony and ambiguity that requires the reader to reflect and dig into what is happening. The story ends on a highly ambiguous note with Ethan's future left in doubt."