The Grapes of Wrath
Pocketbok. Penguin . 1958.
Hyggligt skick.
When this novel was first published, it took both America and Britain by storm. It is the story of a dispossessed community, driven from its bit of land in Oklahoma by the implacable march of industrial progress. The big corporations which own the land the squatters' occupy decide that the time has come to mechanize agriculture - and so the bulldozers demolish overnight the small-holdings and cabins that represent so many years of hope and labour. Like their fathers before them, these displaced citizens of America set out on the migrant trail to the West, but not, alas, to find a land of plenty in the 'Golden West'.
This novel is not only an indictment of industrial civilization but also a chronicle of the fortitude and devotion of the Common Man.
'I have no hesitation in saying that The Grapes of Wrath is one of the most vital stories that I have read for some time... This is a terrible and an indignant book; yet it is not without passages of lyrical beauty, and the ultimate impression is that of the dignity of the human spirit under the stress of the most desperate conditions.' - Manchester Guardian
*The Grapes of Wrath belongs with Moby Dick and Leaves of Grass. And you cannot put anything much higher than that.' - News Chronicle.
