Genuine compassion for his vagabonds and human flotsam gives the breath of life to John Steinbeck's novels and makes them idylls of the lower depths. Of Mice and Men is Steinbeck at his compassionate best; it is a story movingly and forcefully told and with overtones of soaring beauty. Its first success as a national best-seller and its subsequent triumph in dramatic form have helped to place John Steinbeck in the company of the first prose writers of America. Other books by John Steinbeck in the Modern Library are The Grapes of Wrath (No. 148), In Dubious Battle (No. 115), Tortilla Flat (No. 216).