Rather than providing only the dialogue and brief stage directions as would be expected in a play, Steinbeck fleshes out the scenes with details of both the characters and the environment.

The original title of the book, In the Forests of the Night, was a line from The Tyger by William Blake, but complaints that it was too long and too literary by the producers of the play led to the change to the shorter excerpt from the same poem: Burning Bright.

The stage production in 1950 had Rodgers and Hammerstein as producers, Guthrie McClintic as director, Kent Smith as Joe Saul, Barbara Bel Geddes as Mordeen, Howard Da Silva as Friend Ed, and Martin E. Brooks as Victor.

When the production moved to Boston for the main run the critical reviews were terrible, and the play closed after only thirteen performances.

In 1959 NTA Film Network in The Play of the Week broadcast Burning Bright with Myron McCormick as Joe Saul, Colleen Dewhurst as Mordeen, Dana Elcar as friend Ed and Donald Madden as Victor.

The artificial use of language, while necessary to allow the characters' development on the stage, jarred with the critics reviewing the novelization, as did Steinbeck's overemphasis of the message of the play.