Golden bowl

Recreating the ups and downs of the life fate of the English corsair and the seventeenth-century adventurer Henry Morgan, the writer was least concerned about writing a fascinating adventure story. He was occupied with something else - the inner world of a rural boy who became a menace to the seas, the contradictions between the selfish aspirations of the individualist and the prevailing trends in society, the contradiction between dream and reality.

In the spring of 1929, Steinbeck completed work on the Golden Bowl and sent the novel to his friend in New York to offer his publishers. But seven publishers, one after another, reject the novel. “We suffer defeat after defeat,” he admitted in a letter to a friend, also a novice writer, “and I don’t think that some of us still have enough strength, and yet we still hammer our head on the wall of an English-language novel and we lick our scratches, like wounds received in an honorable war ... What an enormous amount of work it takes to write one novel. ”

Soon a telegram came from New York: the McBride Publishing House accepted the Golden Cup for publication and is ready to pay an advance of $ 200 upon signing the deported agreement. The same amount was due to the author after the publication of the novel.

The Golden Bowl was published in August 1929. Steinbeck found out about this when he saw the novel in the book department of a department store — publishers did not bother to send copies of it to him. As it turned out, they did not send the books to newspapers or magazines, as a result of which no reviews appeared. To top it all off, the novel was sold only through a chain of department stores; it didn’t go to bookstores at all. The circulation of 1,500 copies was sold, which was facilitated by a bright dust jacket with a portrait of a pirate: many bought the book as a Christmas present for children.

• Henry Morgan - filibuster, vice governor of Jamaica
• Robert Morgan - Henry's father
• Elizabeth Morgan - Henry's mother
• Merlin is a priest, in his youth a bard
• Tim - Cork Sailor
• James Flower - Henry Planter, Teacher, and Mentor
• Edward Morgan - Uncle Henry, Vice Governor of Port Royal
• Elizabeth - daughter of Edward Morgan
• Isobel - Santa Roja, Red Saint

• Coeur de Gris - filibuster friend of Henry

Young Henry Morgan leaves his parental home in search of fame and adventure. Thanks to sailor Tim from Cork, Henry lands on a ship bound for the West Indies. Morgan goes to Barbados, to planter James Flower, who sees in Henry something more than a slave, and educates him. Having received freedom and fortune, Henry Morgan gathers a team and becomes a successful filibuster. Rumor reaches a pirate about the beautiful Red Saint living in Panama. Morgan decides to take over the richest city. During the ruin of Panama, he finds the Red Saint, but she only taunts him. Henry leaves Panama, deceiving his associates and leaving them with nothing. Arriving at Port Royal, Morgan makes an offer to his uncle's daughter, Elizabeth. The pirate is arrested and taken to England, but after a while Morgan becomes the vice-governor of Jamaica. Henry Morgan dies in his bed, tormented by sins committed throughout his life.

The novel was not successful. Critics attributed this due to the fact that he did not meet the accepted standards of historical romantic works, was permeated with "impressionism and allegory." On the one hand, the novel was too “ironic and realistic in some details” to attract readers of women's magazines. And on the other - he was "too romantic and exotic" for lovers of serious prose. And although the novel was repeatedly reprinted in the United States, it was released in a paperback, real success never came to him. ^[one]