East of Eden (novel)

East of Eden is a 1952 family saga novel by American author and Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck. Many regard the work as Steinbeck's most ambitious novel, and Steinbeck himself considered it his magnum opus. Steinbeck said of East of Eden, "It has everything in it I have been able to learn about my craft or profession in all these years"; the author later said, "I think everything else I have written has been, in a sense, practice for this." Steinbeck originally addressed the novel to his young sons, Thom and John (then 61⁄2 and 41⁄2 years old, respectively). Steinbeck wanted to describe the sights, sounds, smells, and colors of the Salinas Valley for them in detail.

East of Eden details the lives of two families, the Trasks and the Hamiltons, and their interwoven stories. The Hamilton family in the novel is said to be based on the real-life family of Samuel Hamilton, Steinbeck's maternal grandfather. A young John Steinbeck also appears briefly in the novel as a minor character.

In the beginning of East of Eden, before introducing his characters, Steinbeck carefully establishes the setting with a description of the Salinas Valley in Central California. The story is primarily set there, between the beginning of the twentieth century and the end of World War I. The first fourteen chapters, set in Connecticut and Massachusetts, go as far back as the American Civil War and serve as backstory for Adam Trask, his brother Charles, their father Cyrus, and Cathy Ames.