Travels with Charley in Search of America : (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)

Penguin Classics commemorates the 50th anniversary of Steinbeck's Nobel Prize with two stunning new editions of his best-loved works At age fifty-eight, John Steinbeck and his poodle, Charley, embarked on a journey across America. This chronicle of their trip meanders from small towns to growing cities to glorious wilderness oases. Still evocative and awe-inspiring after fifty years, Travels with Charley in Search of Americaprovides an intimate look at one of America's most beloved writers in the later years of his life-a self-portrait of a man who never wrote an explicit autobiography. Written during a time of upheaval and racial tension in the South-which Steinbeck witnessed firsthand- Travels with Charleyis a stunning evocation of America on the eve of a tumultuous decade.

John Steinbeck (1902–1968) was born in Salinas, California. He worked as a laborer and a journalist, and in 1935, when he published Tortilla Flat, he achieved popular success and financial security. Steinbeck wrote more than twenty-five novels and won the Nobel Prize in 1962.

Jay Parini teaches English at Middlebury College and is the author of five novels, including The Last Station. He lives in Vermont.