The Outsiders (novel)

The Outsiders

First hardcover edition, 1967
Author	S. E. Hinton
Cover artist	Robert Hunt
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre	Young adult fiction
Publisher	Viking Press, Dell Publishing
Publication date	April 24, 1967
Media type	Print (hardcover, paperback), Audiobook
Pages	192
ISBN
OCLC	64396432
Followed by	That Was Then, This Is Now

The Outsiders is a coming-of-age novel by S. E. Hinton, first published in 1967 by Viking Press. Hinton was 15 when she started writing the novel, but did most of the work when she was 16 and a junior in high school. Hinton was 18 when the book was published. The book follows two rival groups, the Greasers and the Socs (pronounced by the author as /soʊˈʃəz/, short for Socials), who are divided by their socioeconomic status. The story is told in first-person narrative by protagonist Ponyboy Curtis.

The story in the book takes place in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1965, but this is never stated in the book.

A film adaptation was produced in 1983, and a little-known short-lived television series appeared in 1990, picking up where the movie left off. A stage adaptation was written by Christopher Sergel and published in 1990.

Ponyboy Curtis, a member of a gang called the “Greasers”, is leaving a movie theater when groups of “Socs” (short for "Socials", pronounced /ˈsoʊʃɪz/ soh-shiz), the Greasers’ rival gang, jump him. His two older brothers—Darry and Sodapop—and several members of their gang rescue him. The next night, Ponyboy and his Greaser friends Dallas "Dally" Winston and Johnny meet Socs, Cherry Valance and Marcia, at a drive-in movie theatre. Ponyboy realizes that Cherry is nothing like the Socs he has met before.