Of Mice and Men
John Steinbeck's 1937 novella opens with two California migrant workers walking south along the Salinas River on their way to a new ranch job. George Milton is small, sharp, and tired, and Lennie Small is enormous, gentle, and intellectually disabled, and they have been traveling together since Lennie's aunt died. They share a recurring dream of saving up enough money to buy a few acres of their own where Lennie can tend rabbits, and George tells him the dream the way other men tell bedtime stories. The novel covers only a few days at the new ranch, where they meet an old swamper named Candy, a Black stable hand named Crooks, and the boss's son's restless wife, and it ends in the way Steinbeck's structure has been quietly promising from page one. It is one of the most assigned and most banned books in American schools.
Themes & atmosphere
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What you might want to know about Of Mice and Men
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
George and Lennie, two migrant ranch hands moving through Depression-era California, sign on at a Salinas Valley ranch. They share a dream of buying a small farm. Lennie's strength gets them in trouble fast.
Yes. Of Mice and Men has been one of the most frequently challenged books in American schools, primarily for language, racial slurs, and violence. It remains widely taught despite the challenges.
Of Mice and Men is fictional but draws on John Steinbeck's own experience as a migrant worker in California in the early 1930s. The setting and conditions are documentary; the characters are invented.
Of Mice and Men was written by John Steinbeck, published in 1937 by Dramatists Play Service, Inc..
Of Mice and Men is 119 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Of Mice and Men takes most readers 2 to 3 hours to finish.
Of Mice and Men is a standalone novel by John Steinbeck, not part of a series.
Of Mice and Men is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.