{"product_id":"the-pearl-9780140177374","title":"The Pearl","description":"\u003cb\u003eThe classic novella from Nobel Prize-winner John Steinbeck explores the secrets of man's nature, the darkest depths of evil, and the luminous possibilities of love.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eLike his father and grandfather before him, Kino is a poor diver, gathering pearls from the gulf beds that once brought great wealth to the Kings of Spain and now provide Kino, Juana, and their infant son with meager subsistence. Then, on a day like any other, Kino emerges from the sea with a pearl as large as a sea gull's egg, as \"perfect as the moon.\" With the pearl comes hope, the promise of comfort and of security....\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eJohn Steinbeck\u003c\/b\u003e, born in Salinas, California, in 1902, grew up in a fertile agricultural valley, about twenty-five miles from the Pacific Coast. Both the valley and the coast would serve as settings for some of his best fiction. In 1919 he went to Stanford University, where he intermittently enrolled in literature and writing courses until he left in 1925 without taking a degree. During the next five years he supported himself as a laborer and journalist in New York City, all the time working on his first novel, \u003ci\u003eCup of Gold\u003c\/i\u003e (1929). \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAfter marriage and a move to Pacific Grove, he published two California books, \u003ci\u003eThe Pastures of Heaven\u003c\/i\u003e (1932) and \u003ci\u003eTo a God Unknown\u003c\/i\u003e (1933), and worked on short stories later collected in \u003ci\u003eThe Long Valley\u003c\/i\u003e (1938). Popular success and financial security came only with \u003ci\u003eTortilla Flat\u003c\/i\u003e (1935), stories about Monterey's paisanos. A ceaseless experimenter throughout his career, Steinbeck changed courses regularly. Three powerful novels of the late 1930s focused on the California laboring class: \u003ci\u003eIn Dubious Battle\u003c\/i\u003e (1936), \u003ci\u003eOf Mice and Men\u003c\/i\u003e (1937), and the book considered by many his finest, \u003ci\u003eThe Grapes of Wrath\u003c\/i\u003e (1939). \u003ci\u003eThe Grapes of Wrath\u003c\/i\u003e won both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize in 1939. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eEarly in the 1940s, Steinbeck became a filmmaker with \u003ci\u003eThe Forgotten Village\u003c\/i\u003e (1941) and a serious student of marine biology with \u003ci\u003eSea of Cortez\u003c\/i\u003e (1941). He devoted his services to the war, writing Bombs Away (1942) and the controversial play-novelette \u003ci\u003eThe Moon is Down\u003c\/i\u003e (1942).\u003ci\u003eCannery Row\u003c\/i\u003e (1945), \u003ci\u003eThe Wayward Bus\u003c\/i\u003e (1948), another experimental drama, \u003ci\u003eBurning Bright\u003c\/i\u003e(1950), and \u003ci\u003eThe Log from the Sea of Cortez\u003c\/i\u003e (1951) preceded publication of the monumental \u003ci\u003eEast of Eden\u003c\/i\u003e (1952), an ambitious saga of the Salinas Valley and his own family's history. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe last decades of his life were spent in New York City and Sag Harbor with his third wife, with whom he traveled widely. Later books include \u003ci\u003eSweet Thursday\u003c\/i\u003e (1954), \u003ci\u003eThe Short Reign of Pippin IV: A Fabrication\u003c\/i\u003e (1957), \u003ci\u003eOnce There Was a War\u003c\/i\u003e (1958), \u003ci\u003eThe Winter of Our Discontent \u003c\/i\u003e(1961), \u003ci\u003eTravels with Charley in Search of America\u003c\/i\u003e (1962), \u003ci\u003eAmerica and Americans\u003c\/i\u003e (1966), and the posthumously published \u003ci\u003eJournal of a Novel: The East of Eden Letters\u003c\/i\u003e (1969), \u003ci\u003eViva Zapata!\u003c\/i\u003e(1975), \u003ci\u003eThe Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights\u003c\/i\u003e (1976), and \u003ci\u003eWorking Days: The Journals of The Grapes of Wrath\u003c\/i\u003e (1989). \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eSteinbeck received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1962, and, in 1964, he was presented with the United States Medal of Freedom by President Lyndon B. Johnson. Steinbeck died in New York in 1968. Today, more than thirty years after his death, he remains one of America's greatest writers and cultural figures. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLinda Wagner-Martin \u003c\/b\u003eis Frank Borden Hanes Professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the editor of \u003ci\u003eThe Portable Edith Wharton\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Penguin Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50580029145362,"sku":"9780140177374","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_3574a65a-7ca3-44e7-b81c-e82d14579455.jpg?v=1751363868","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/the-pearl-9780140177374","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}