John Steinbeck, The Moon is Down

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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…

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 19 March 2024.]

133 The Moon is Down 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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