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Late in the 19th century, Jane Witherspoon, a Mormon, stands to inherit an enormous ranch along the Utah border with Arizona. Her problem is that fellow Mormon Elder Tull has plans to make her one of his wives, in which case she she would lose all rights to her land. Luckily, the lone cowboy known as Lassiter rolls into town, and faces Tull head-on.

This novel about the friendship between two Nebraska children, Jim Burden and Antonia Shimerda is considered Cather's masterpiece. The fortunes of the two families are opposed: the Burdens thrive while the Shimerdas decline, a downfall that culminates in the suicide of Antonia's father, which forces the girl to work in the fields and then as a servant. Throughout all her trials, Antonia's strength, humor, and goodness sustain her and her family--and Jim, for whom she is a lifelong inspiration and mentor. Willa Cather called this novel the best thing I've done.

The protagonist, Mary Emma Moody, widowed mother of six, has taken her family east in 1912 to begin a new life. Her son, Ralph, then thirteen, recalls how the Moodys survive that first bleak winter in a Massachusetts town. Money and prospects are lacking, but not so faith and resourcefulness. Mother in Little Britches and Man of the Family, Mary Emma emerges fully as a character in this book, and Ralph, no longer called Little Britches, comes into his own.The family's run-ins with authority and with broken furnaces in winter are evocative of a full and warm family life. Mary Emma& Company continues the Moody saga that started in Colorado with Little Britches and runs through Man of the Family and The Home Ranch. All these titles have been reprinted as Bison Books, as has The Fields of Home, in which Ralph leaves the Massachusetts town for his grandfather's farm in Maine.

Adopting the structure and themes of the Arthurian legend, Steinbeck created a Camelot on a shabby hillside above the town of Monterey, California, and peopled it with a colorful band of knights. At the center of the tale is Danny, whose house, like Arthur's castle, becomes a gathering place for men looking for adventure, camaraderie, and a sense of belonging. These knights are paisanos, men of mixed heritage, whose ancestors settled California hundreds of years before.
As Steinbeck recounts their deeds--their multiple loves, their wonderful brawls, their Rabelaisian wine-drinking--he spins a tale as compelling and sorrowful as the famous legends of the Round Table, which inspired him.

The foreman of a large cattle ranch on the Wyoming frontier lives by the honor code of the West even though it means helping lynch a friend or possibly losing the girl he is to marry.

THE RED PONY, based on Steinbeck's own experiences in his youth, was a best-seller, and remains a great American classic--a series of coming-of-age stories about a young boy who must learn for himself about death and loss..

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