The Long Valley

The Long Valley
First edition
AuthorJohn Steinbeck
LanguageEnglish
GenreShort story collection
PublisherViking Press
Publication date
1938
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint (hardback & paperback)
OCLC940263143

The Long Valley is a collection of short fiction by John Steinbeck. Most of the stories appeared originally in literary periodicals, and were first collected by Viking Press in 1938.[1][2]

Ranked among Steinbeck's "finest and best-known" fiction, these are among the most frequently anthologized of Steinbeck's stories, widely read by university undergraduates and high school students.[3][4] Author and social critic Andre Gide declared that several stories in The Long Valley "equaled or surpassed" those of Russian author Anton Checkov.[5]

"The Murder" and "The Promise" were selected for the O. Henry Prize anthology for short fiction in 1934 and 1938, respectively.[6][7][8]

  1. ^ Hughes, 1989 p. 199: Bibliography
  2. ^ DeMott, 1994 p. 886: Three of the stories were published by Covic-Friede, limited edition, 1937, "The Gift" - "The Great Mountains" — "The Promise"
  3. ^ Hayashi, 1975 p. ix: "...the stories in The Long Valley are among Steinbeck's most frequently anthologized in college textbooks; they retain a wide appeal to a vast range of college undergraduates and high school students alike."
  4. ^ Hughes, 1989 p. 20: "Fifteen of Steinbeck's finest and best-known stories are collected in The Long Valley."
  5. ^ Gide, 1944: On novelist John Steinbeck—"some of the stories in ... The Long Valley . . . equal or surpass the best tales of Chekhov."
  6. ^ Hughes, 1989 p. 195: Chronology
  7. ^ "The O. Henry Prize Past Winners". Random House. Archived from the original on 2017-09-05. Retrieved 30 September 2017.
  8. ^ Railsback, Brian; Meyer, Michael J., eds. (2006). A John Steinbeck Encyclopedia. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 298. ISBN 9780313060304.