Which John Steinbeck novel features the characters George and Lennie?
Answer
Of Mice and Men
The John Steinbeck novel featuring George and Lennie is Of Mice and Men. Published in 1937, it follows two migrant ranch workers searching for employment and dreaming of owning a small farm during the Great Depression.
George Milton is intelligent and responsible, while Lennie Small is physically powerful but has an intellectual disability and depends heavily on George. Their friendship gives the novella its emotional center, as they try to protect their shared dream despite repeated trouble.
Steinbeck drew on his experiences working alongside migrant laborers in California. The title comes from Robert Burns’s poem “To a Mouse,” whose famous idea is that even carefully made plans can go awry. The work was designed as both a novella and a stage-play-like script, helping explain its compact, scene-based structure.
A common mix-up is confusing it with The Grapes of Wrath, another Steinbeck work about hardship in Depression-era America. That novel follows the Joad family, whereas Of Mice and Men centers on George and Lennie.