These short stories, written over several years and first published together in 1938, are set in Steinbeck’s birthplace, the rolling Salinas Valley in California, a land of farms, ranches, sunny hills and distant mountains. Haunting and acutely observed, they explore the tensions between men and women, the individual and society, and humanity and the natural world. They include the chilling, prize-winning tale ‘The Murder’; ‘The Chrysanthemums’, possibly his most ambitious story; the gritty lynch mob violence of ‘The Vigilante’; and the classic ‘Red Pony’ tales. In these works Steinbeck developed new ways of story telling, honing the artistry from which his great novels would emerge.