John Steinbeck, The Moon is Down

Michael J. Meyer (DePaul University)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.4: American (US) Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Sofia Ahlberg (Uppsala University), Patrick Chura (University of Akron), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Christopher Hugh Gair (University of Glasgow), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1942

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novella

Resources

Save to Bookshelf

Recommended Reading

Although John Steinbeck actually observed combat while serving as a correspondent for the government’s Office of Strategic Services during the later years of World War II, surprisingly he only wrote one war novel, a work entitled

The Moon Is Down

. Composed during 1941, before America had even entered the war, and published in 1942, shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, this novel was Steinbeck’s fourteenth work and his second attempt (

Of Mice and Men

was the first) to be composed in what he called the play-novelette form. Initially,

The Moon Is Down

grew out of the author’s volunteer work with several governmental intelligence and information agencies during 1940 and 1941. Motivated by a deep desire to help the Allied forces in Europe in some positive way, his involvement soon…

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

3655 words

Citation: Meyer, Michael J.. "The Moon is Down". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 27 December 2007 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=133, accessed 25 November 2024.]

View recommended reading for this article

John Steinbeck, The Moon is Down

Dates

Places

Genres and Modes

Resources

Save this article

Leave Feedback