> Skip to content
Play sample
  • Published: 23 May 2001
  • ISBN: 9780141186108
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 240
  • RRP: $22.99
Categories:

Travels with Charley

In Search of America




A witty, incisive classic of road-trip literature, from one of the great champions and critics of the American identity

'Delightful. This is a book to be read slowly for its savor.' The Atlantic
In 1960, John Steinbeck set out in his pick-up truck with his dog Charley to rediscover and chronicle his native USA, from Maine to California.

He felt that he might have lost touch with its sights, sounds and the essence of the American people. Moving through the woods and deserts, dirt tracks and highways to large cities and glorious wildernesses, Steinbeck observed - with remarkable honesty, insight and a humorous eye - the gamut of America and the people who inhabited it.

His 10,000-mile journey took him through almost forty states, where he saw things that made him proud, angry, sympathetic and elated. A rugged and passionate adventure of self-identity, Steinbeck's vision of the changing world still speaks to us prophetically through the decades.

  • Published: 23 May 2001
  • ISBN: 9780141186108
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 240
  • RRP: $22.99
Categories:

About the author

John Steinbeck

John Steinbeck was born in Salinas, California, in 17 February 1902. After studying English at Stanford University, he held several jobs including working as a hod-carrier, apprentice painter, laboratory assistant, ranch hand, fruit-picker, construction worker at Madison Square Gardens, New York, and reporter for the New York American. In 1935 he became a full-time writer and was a special writer for the United States Army Air Force during World War II.

Among his most renowned works are Of Mice and Men, Cannery Row, East of Eden and The Grapes of Wrath, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1940.

In 1926 Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature as a mark of his outstanding contribution to literature, his unquestionable popularity and his versatility. In his speech accepting the Nobel Prize, Steinbeck gave his view of authorship: 'The ancient omission of the writer has not changed. He is charged with exposing our may grevious faults and failures, with dredging up to the light our dark and dangerous dreams for the purpose of improvement. Furthermore, the writer is delegated to declare and to celebrate man's proven capacity for greatness of heart and spirit for gallantry in defeat - for courage, compassion and love.'

John Steinbeck died on 20th December 1968.

Also by John Steinbeck

See all