John Steinbeck is now most famous as author of The Grapes of Wrath (1938), a novel about agricultural workers displaced from Oklahoma during the Great Depression. But he regarded East of Eden (1952), a saga depicting the lives of two Californian families, as his favourite and most significant work.
Despite being a long novel, nearly 600 pages in paperback, it sold very well on its first publication. It was given a subsequent boost in 2003 by being selected for Oprah Winfrey’s Book Club.
