The book should be a valuable contribution to the critical heritage on the novels and short stories of the leading American novelists during the period between the two World Wars. Staying clear of the post modernist controversies about the function of criticism, the book offers insightful analysisof the novelists major fictional narratives. Showing how the American writer shares in his view of women several limitations of the society of which he himself was a product the book brings out as well various radical ideas which the writer seems to hold much ahead of his times. One of the strong points of this study of Steinbecdk is its objective treatment of the author and his work treating both from the disinterested standpoint of the Arnoldian critic.