Burning Bright

A Play in Story Form

By: John Steinbeck, John Ditsky - introduction

Narrated by: Richard Poe

The last of John Steinbeck’s play-novelettes, Burning Bright was the author’s final attempt after 1937’s Of Mice and Men and 1942’s The Moon is Down to create what he saw as a new, experimental literary form. Four scenes, four people: the husband who yearns for a son, ignorant of his own sterility; the wife who commits adultery to fulfill her husband’s wish; the father of the child; and the outsider whose actions will affect them all. In this turn on a medieval morality play, Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck casts an unwavering light on these four intertwined lives, revealing in their finely drawn circumstances the universal contours of vulnerability and passion, desperation and desire. This edition features an introduction and notes for further reading by Steinbeck scholar John Ditsky.

Critic reviews

By the Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature

“A morality play conceived with poetic intensity.” —New York Herald Tribune

“[Burning Bright’s] four solitary characters are neither flesh-and-blood nor stock figures; husband, wife, friend, outsider, they are the legendary archetypes of folklore, speaking a spare, bare-boned language salted with color—a kind of abstract folk speech that is stilted, poetic and moving.” —The New York Times

I Love My Son!

I Love Our Son!
John Steinbeck makes his way to the heart of us once again.

Beautiful🥰

Perhaps the most beautiful of John Steinbeck’s works. I loved it. Motivates me to read another book by him.

A bit Heavy Handed

A bit Heavy Handed

Named for the Blake's The Tyger poem, this is a experimental play-novelette form which worked well for me in Of Mice and Men but seemed heavy handed here. The prose are a bit overly theatrical and the morality-play aspects seems both dated and overblown.

Still, it is well written and was an enjoyable listen.

The narration is clear, but is overwhelmed by the theatrical language.