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Of Mice and Men

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Of Mice and Men is a novel by John Steinbeck written in 1937 which tells the story of George and Lennie, two of many men displaced by the Great Depression. Lennie is a large man with the mind of a child, and George is a small man with a quick wit. The title of the story refers to a line in "To a Mouse" by the Scottish poet Robert Burns. Steinbeck originally intended it to be a play. In many ways, the novel is structured as a play, with several long scenes, stage direction like descriptions, and large amounts of dialogue.


The novel was made into two films:

1939, directed by Lewis Milestone
1992, John Malkovich (Lennie) actor/director Gary Sinise (George)

The novel was banned from various American school libraries or curricula in 1993 and 1994 for "profane language, moral statement, treatment of the retarded, and the "violent ending". Nevertheless, it now appears as one of the possible books that can be studied for GCSE English in Britain.

Carlisle Floyd wrote an opera based on this novel in 1970.

ISBN numbers

  • ISBN 0822208385 (perfect, 1950)
  • ISBN 0812034317 (paperback, 1984)
  • ISBN 1556516770 (paperback, 1988)
  • ISBN 0606002006 (prebound, 1992)
  • ISBN 0453007902 (hardcover, 1992)
  • ISBN 0140177396 (hardcover, 1993)
  • ISBN 0140186425 (hardcover, 1994)
  • ISBN 0783813589 (library binding, 1995, Large Type Edition)
  • ISBN 0140188290 (paperback, 1997)
  • ISBN 0764108204 (paperback, 1999)
  • ISBN 0142000671 (paperback, 2002)
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