The Forests of the Night the war as it really was, as James Kirkup observed, an "acid portrait of those who played at being members of the [French] Resistance". The novel's theme and title come from the opening lines to William Blake's poem "The Tyger": "Tiger, tiger, burning bright - in the forests of the night." "The Forests of the Night" was translated in 1951 into English by Nora Wydenbruck; it has not been re-printed since. Francis is the son of the Comte de Balansun, whose family resides in the French town of Saint-Clar, near the Pyrenees. Francis, in the beginning of the novel, skips
Burning Bright performances. One of the co-producers admitted that he had known the production was doomed after the first night. Steinbeck was later upbeat about the failure of the play and stated he was still keen to continue working in the theatre: Despite his apparent continued enthusiasm after the failure of "Burning Bright", Steinbeck never made another attempt at producing anything for the theatre. In reality he had been deeply hurt by its failure and some of the acerbic notices it had received from the New York critics: "Burning Bright" was turned into an opera by American composer Frank Lewin. The reviews