john steinbeck biography questions

John Steinbeck

John Steinbeck was an American novelist who is known for works such as the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, 'The Grapes of Wrath,' as well as 'Of Mice and Men' and 'East of Eden.'

(1902-1968)

Who Was John Steinbeck?

John Steinbeck was a Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist and the author of Of Mice and Men , The Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden. Steinbeck dropped out of college and worked as a manual laborer before achieving success as a writer. His works often dealt with social and economic issues. His 1939 novel, The Grapes of Wrath , about the migration of a family from the Oklahoma Dust Bowl to California, won a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award. Steinbeck served as a war correspondent during World War II, and he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962.

Early Life and Education

John Ernst Steinbeck Jr. was born on February 27, 1902, in Salinas, California. Steinbeck was raised with modest means. His father, John Ernst Steinbeck, tried his hand at several different jobs to keep his family fed: He owned a feed-and-grain store, managed a flour plant and served as treasurer of Monterey County. His mother, Olive Hamilton Steinbeck, was a former schoolteacher.

For the most part, Steinbeck — who grew up with three sisters — had a happy childhood. He was shy but smart. He formed an early appreciation for the land and in particular California's Salinas Valley, which would greatly inform his later writing. According to accounts, Steinbeck decided to become a writer at the age of 14, often locking himself in his bedroom to write poems and stories.

In 1919, Steinbeck enrolled at Stanford University — a decision that had more to do with pleasing his parents than anything else — but the budding writer would prove to have little use for college.

Over the next six years, Steinbeck drifted in and out of school, eventually dropping out for good in 1925, without a degree.

Following Stanford, Steinbeck tried to make a go of it as a freelance writer. He briefly moved to New York City, where he found work as a construction worker and a newspaper reporter, but then returned to California, where he took a job as a caretaker in Lake Tahoe and began his writing career.

John Steinbeck’s Books

Steinbeck wrote 31 books over the course of his career. His most well-known novels include Of Mice and Men (1937), Grapes of Wrath (1939) and East of Eden (1952).

'Of Mice and Men' (1937)

Two poor migrant workers, George and Lennie, are working for the American dream in California during the Great Depression. Lennie, who has a mild mental disability, is steadfastly faithful to his friend George, but he has a habit of getting into trouble. Their goal: to own an acre of land and a shack. After they both secure jobs working the fields of the Salinas Valley — Steinbeck’s own hometown — their dream seems more attainable than ever. However, Lennie’s inclinations eventually get him into trouble again, spiraling to a tragic conclusion for both men. The book was later transformed into a Broadway play and three movies.

'The Grapes of Wrath' (1939)

Widely considered Steinbeck's finest and most ambitious novel, this book tells the story of a dispossessed Oklahoma family and their struggle to carve out a new life in California at the height of the Great Depression, the book captured the mood and angst of the nation during this time period. At the height of its popularity, The Grapes of Wrath sold 10,000 copies per week.

'The Pearl' (1947)

This story, based on a Mexican folktale, explores human nature and the potential of love. Kino, a poor diver who gathers pearls from the ocean floor, lives with his wife Juana and their infant son Coyotito by the sea. On the same day Coyotito is stung by a scorpion and is turned away by the town doctor because they can’t afford care, Kino finds the largest pearl he’s ever seen on one of his dives. The pearl, which brings the potential of great fortune, ignites the neighbors’ jealousy, eventually becoming a dangerous agent of evil.

'East of Eden' (1952)

Some of Steinbeck’s other works include Cup of Gold (1929), The Pastures of Heaven (1932) and To a God Unknown (1933), all of which received tepid reviews. It wasn't until Tortilla Flat (1935), a humorous novel about paisano life in the Monterey region was released, that the writer achieved real success.

Steinbeck struck a more serious tone with In Dubious Battle (1936) and The Long Valley (1938), a collection of short stories. He continued to write in his later years, with credits including Cannery Row (1945), Burning Bright (1950), The Winter of Our Discontent (1961) and Travels with Charley: In Search of America (1962).

In 1940, Steinbeck earned a Pulitzer Prize for The Grapes of Wrath . In 1962, the author received the Nobel Prize for Literature — "for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humour and keen social perception." Upon receiving the award, Steinbeck said the writer’s duty was “dredging up to the light our dark and dangerous dreams for the purpose of improvement.”

During World War II, Steinbeck served as a war correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune .

Around this same time, he traveled to Mexico to collect marine life with friend Edward F. Ricketts, a marine biologist. Their collaboration resulted in the book Sea of Cortez (1941), which describes marine life in the Gulf of California.

Wives and Children

Steinbeck was married three times and had two sons. In 1930, Steinbeck met and married his first wife, Carol Henning. Over the following decade, he poured himself into his writing with Carol's support and paycheck, until the couple divorced in 1942.

Steinbeck was married to his second wife, Gwyndolyn Conger, from 1943 to 1948. The couple had two sons together, Thomas (born 1944) and John (born 1946). In 1950, Steinbeck wed his third wife, Elaine Anderson Scott. The couple remained together until his death in 1968.

Steinbeck died of heart disease on December 20, 1968, at his home in New York City.

QUICK FACTS

• Name: John Steinbeck
• Birth Year: 1902
• Birth date: February 27, 1902
• Birth State: California
• Birth City: Salinas
• Birth Country: United States
• Gender: Male
• Best Known For: John Steinbeck was an American novelist who is known for works such as the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, 'The Grapes of Wrath,' as well as 'Of Mice and Men' and 'East of Eden.'
• Fiction and Poetry
• Astrological Sign: Pisces
• Stanford University
• Interesting Facts
• John Steinbeck enrolled at Stanford University but never finished his degree.
• During World War II, Steinbeck served as a war correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune.
• Steinbeck had married three times in his lifetime.
• Death Year: 1968
• Death date: December 20, 1968
• Death State: New York
• Death City: New York
• Death Country: United States

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CITATION INFORMATION

• Article Title: John Steinbeck Biography
• Author: Biography.com Editors
• Website Name: The Biography.com website
• Url: https://www.biography.com/authors-writers/john-steinbeck
• Access Date:
• Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
• Last Updated: April 14, 2021
• Original Published Date: April 2, 2014
• A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find that after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us.
• In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.
• Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.
• We are lonesome animals. We spend all our life trying to be less lonesome.
• The discipline of the written word punishes both stupidity and dishonesty.
• A writer lives in awe of words, for they can be cruel or kind, and they can change their meanings right in front of you.
• To finish is sadness to a writer—a little death. He puts the last word down and it is done. But it isn't really done. The story goes on and leaves the writer behind, for no story is ever done.
• I know that no one really wants the benefit of anyone's experience, which is probably why it is so freely offered.
• I should think that a comfortable body would let the mind go freely to its gathering.
• I do a whole of a day's work and then the next day, flushed with triumph, I dawdle. That's today. The crazy thing is that I get about the same number of words down either way.
• I guess it is a good thing I became a writer. Perhaps I am too lazy for anything else.
• For poetry is the mathematics of writing and closely kin to music. And it is also the best therapy because sometimes the troubles come tumbling out.
• The craft or art of writing is the clumsy attempt to find symbols for the wordlessness.
• I learned long ago that you cannot tell how you will end by how you start.
• We work in our own darkness a great deal with little real knowledge of what we are doing. I think I know better what I am doing than most writers but it still isn't much.
• Give a critic an inch and he'll write a play.

The Biography.com staff is a team of people-obsessed and news-hungry editors with decades of collective experience. We have worked as daily newspaper reporters, major national magazine editors, and as editors-in-chief of regional media publications. Among our ranks are book authors and award-winning journalists. Our staff also works with freelance writers, researchers, and other contributors to produce the smart, compelling profiles and articles you see on our site. To meet the team, visit our About Us page: https://www.biography.com/about/a43602329/about-us

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Center for Steinbeck Studies

Brief Biography

Born in Salinas, California on February 27, 1902, John Steinbeck remains the quintessential California writer. Beginning in the 1930s, he forged a significant place in the culture and letters of the United States as a writer deeply engaged with place, with marginalized workers and ordinary people, and with the political and social human dramas that confronted him. More than any other writer of the United States in the 1900s, he remained engaged in the struggles of his country. He wrote social histories in the 1930s; deeply ecological works in the 1940s; early accounts of the Cold War when covering the Soviet Union in 1947; cultural studies of Mexico and Mexicans from the mid-1930s to the mid-1950s; and in the 1960s increasingly concerned essays about the people of the United States, including accounts of the U.S. war in Vietnam. John Steinbeck, winner of the 1962 Nobel Prize, wrote as the conscience of his country for nearly 40 years. He died 20 December 1968 in his New York City apartment.

Biographical Resources Offered by the Center for Steinbeck Studies Include:

• John Steinbeck, American Writer is an in-depth biography of Steinbeck written by Dr. Susan Shillinglaw.
• View a Chronology of events in John Steinbeck's Life by Robert B. Harmon.
• Find an impressive list of Awards Won by Steinbeck .
• Learn about Steinbeck's Homes and Locations in California and New York.
• Read a transcript of Steinbeck's Nobel Prize Speech .
• Pigasus is Steinbeck's trademark symbol. Read Elaine Steinbeck's explanation of its origins.
• Take a Virtual Tour of Steinbeck Country .
• Find a Study of Steinbeck's Life and Works .

About John Steinbeck

Here you will find articles that address key elements intersecting Steinbeck’s life and work:

• his friendship with biologist Ed Ricketts
• reflections on what his novels offer to readers, philosophically and ecologically
• background on The Grapes of Wrath

Thoughts on Steinbeck’s vision of nature and humanity

• as revealed in Cannery Row
• insight into how Steinbeck’s experiences inspired elements of The Red Pony
• background on his controversial, censored 1941 film The Forgotten Village . The National Steinbeck Center in Salinas and the San Jose State University Steinbeck Center offer additional background information on John Steinbeck to the public.

Books by Susan Shillinglaw

More about john steinbeck: "of migrants and misdeeds".

• "Thoughts on Steinbeck's Spirituality"
• "Exploring The Red Pony"
• "Steinbeck's The Forgotten Village"
• "Why read Steinbeck?"
• "Collaborators and Cohorts: Edward Flanders Ricketts & John Steinbeck"
• "Reading Sea of Cortez" (960.54 KB)
• "The Grapes of Wrath: Historical Background"
• John Steinbeck, American Writer

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John Steinbeck was born in Salinas in 1902 to a middle-class family living a few blocks from Salinas’ bustling Main Street. His father, John Ernst Sr., worked as a manager in the local flour mill. Later, he owned a feed store and was later appointed Monterey County Treasurer. Steinbeck’s mother, born Olive Hamilton, was a former school teacher who enforced high academic standards for her children and encouraged a love of literature. John Steinbeck had three sisters: two older sisters Esther and Beth, and a younger sister Mary, whom Steinbeck was close to throughout their childhood together.

Schooling for Steinbeck showed an early love of storytelling and writing. In high school, a favorite teacher of Steinbeck, read his stories aloud to the class as positive examples, both embarrassing him due to his shyness and encouraging him to continue. He carried this love of writing to college, attending Stanford University’s growing selection of creative writing and English courses. However, the details of taking a full roster of requirements for graduation did not appeal to Steinbeck, so he left the University in 1925 without a degree, having taken the courses that interested him over six years.

Steinbeck’s early work and writing as an independent adult were varied and difficult. He worked at odd jobs, including construction work, journalism, as a winter caretaker for a Tahoe estate, and finally in a Tahoe fish hatchery. Throughout this assortment of jobs, Steinbeck tried to write in his free time. The job as a winter caretaker for a Tahoe vacation estate afforded him the most time to write; he finished his first novel-length manuscript, isolated in his cabin after long winters. This became The Cup of Gold (1929) . While working at the hatchery the following summer, Steinbeck met Carol Henning, who would become his first wife. The couple married on January 14, 1930, in a courthouse ceremony.

Together, they lived as long as they could in Los Angeles until the money ran out, forcing them to move to the Steinbeck family vacation cottage in Pacific Grove. There, Carol worked a series of odd jobs herself, putting her skills as a secretary to good use, while Steinbeck wrote as much as he could. During this early period of his writing career, Steinbeck wrote The Pastures of Heaven , stories that became part of The Red Pony , The Long Valley , and To a God Unknown . However, his first commercial success came with the publication of Tortilla Flat . This was Steinbeck’s first book published with his new publisher and editor, Pascal Covici. He would remain Steinbeck’s friend and editor until his death in 1964.

After this turning point in Steinbeck’s career, he started work on some of the best-known pieces, including In Dubious Battle , Of Mice and Men , and the crowning achievement, The Grapes of Wrath . At its publication in 1939, The Grapes of Wrath was a controversial book. Steinbeck felt that it plagued the rest of his career: everyone from his literary agents to the reading public was waiting for another Grapes of Wrath . Unfortunately, after fame and fortune came to his life, Steinbeck’s marriage to Carol wavered and fell apart. They divorced in 1943, freeing Steinbeck to marry Gwyndolyn “Gwyn” Conger, whom he had met several years before.

With the dawning of the 1940’s, Steinbeck turned to the growing war effort, producing propaganda pieces supporting the American war effort. The Moon is Down rose to a level of prominence in Europe it never achieved in the United States. For occupied Europe, it became a well-loved work, passed clandestinely from reader to reader even when it could earn them a prison or death sentence. In 1943, Steinbeck experienced war for himself as a war correspondent, writing for the New York Herald Tribune and syndicated in every state except Oklahoma. Upon returning from the war, Steinbeck felt the need for something different. During the war, his injuries and experiences put him in a dark mood that lasted for many months afterward.

Finally moving out of his dark mood, Steinbeck wrote Cannery Row , a book that, in a 1953 essay, Steinbeck says that the soldiers asked for: something funny and not about the war, as they were sick of war. In this post-war period, Steinbeck also returned to pre-war material from his 1940 trip to Baja California, where he and Ed Ricketts went on a trip to collect marine specimens. The Pearl was the result of this tour of his recent past, a novella together with a film by Mexican director Emiliano Fernandez. He also wrote The Wayward Bus , which has its roots in Steinbeck’s time in Mexico.

However, two tragedies struck quickly in 1948: Ed Ricketts died from injuries sustained in a car accident with an oncoming train, and Gwyn asked for a divorce. Later that year, Steinbeck returned to the cottage in Pacific Grove, where he spent much of his time in the 1930s. The following year, he received a visit from actress Ann Southern, who brought along her friend, Elaine Scott. She would become Steinbeck’s third and last wife; the couple married less than a week after Elaine secured her divorce from actor Zachary Scott in December 1950. Then, in early 1951, Steinbeck turned to the “big novel” of his career, East of Eden , drawing on his own family history intertwined with the fictional Trask family. They play out a retelling of the Cain and Abel story. The novel took nearly a year to complete and was published in 1952.

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Steinbeck and Elaine traveled widely. Steinbeck finally achieved his goal of supporting their travels through journalism, written about the places they visited. The trip that stood out most for Steinbeck was a ten-month stay in Somerset, England, where Steinbeck worked on a modernized version of the King Arthur stories he loved from his childhood. It stood incomplete for the rest of Steinbeck’s life, though published posthumously in 1976. After months abroad for many years, Steinbeck turned back to his own country, writing about the United States in Travels With Charley and expressing his concern over moral decay in America in The Winter of our Discontent . Later, in America and Americans , Steinbeck returned to the issue of Americans, their culture, and what America was like in the mid-1960s. Although critical of excesses and moral laziness, Steinbeck was clearly sympathetic to Americans as a people and wrote about his belief in the potential Americans have for greatness.

In 1962, Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for his body of work. His is “realistic and imaginative writing, combining as it does sympathetic humor and social perception,” said Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy Anders Osterling in his presentation speech. In 1964, Steinbeck was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Lyndon B. Johnson, with whom the writer was personally acquainted.

Steinbeck’s health continued to decline throughout the mid-sixties, and he eventually died at his home in New York City on December 20, 1968.

The National Steinbeck Center, a museum and cultural center in downtown Salinas, pays tribute to his life and lasting impact on American letters and American identity. The Steinbeck Museum explores his ecological vision, his commitment to social engagement, and his many stories about the working class—all of which ensure his work is deeply relevant today. Steinbeck’s books have been published in more than 45 languages, and he is, truly, a citizen of Salinas as well as a citizen of the world.

Steinbeck Young Authors Program

The Steinbeck Young Authors Program aspires to ignite the imagination of middle school students, specifically those in grades 6th to 8th. It seeks to lead them on an inspiring journey through the works of the legendary American author, John Steinbeck, while simultaneously encouraging the cultivation of their own unique narrative talents. Participating in this program offers a platform for students to not only express their artistic flair but also to deepen their appreciation for Steinbeck’s literary legacy.

Program Highlights:

Discovering John Steinbeck:  Students will embark on a voyage into the world of John Steinbeck—his life, his creations, and the thematic tapestries he wove into his narratives.

Crafting Original Narratives:  Encouraging young minds to channel their imaginative energies, the program invites students to craft their own original stories. This endeavor not only nurtures their writing acumen but also empowers them to articulate their distinctive voices.

Anthology Publication:  The pinnacle of this journey is the anthology publication, which will feature submitted works by students. This honor is not merely a celebration of their creative endeavors, but an affirmation of their literary aptitude.

Steinbeck Center’s Day of Writing*:  Two students, nominated by their teachers, will be granted the unique privilege of participating in the Steinbeck Center’s Writing Day here at the National John Steinbeck Center located in Salinas, CA. (Local Students Only*)

We firmly believe that the Steinbeck Young Authors Program will significantly enrich your student’s educational journey. By fostering a passion for literature, refining their writing skills, and nurturing their creative instincts, this initiative promises to be a transformative experience. 

In order to facilitate seamless participation, we kindly request that you disseminate this information to your esteemed teaching colleagues. Linked at the bottom of this email, you will find a Google Form  tailored for teachers who wish to partake in this year’s Steinbeck Young Authors program. The deadline for teachers to complete the form is set for Friday, September 29th, 2023 . We kindly request that each teacher completes the form only once. 

Following this, teachers can anticipate receiving their Google Drive links from [email protected] by no later than Friday, October 6th, 2023.  Teachers can have their students start working on their writing as soon as teachers get their Google Drive resources. Student submissions are due by January 31st, 2024. We will be in contact about dates for the Day of Writing and the Steinbeck Young Authors Awards night as we approach the end of the semester. 

Should any queries arise or further information be required, please do not hesitate to contact us at [email protected] .

The Steinbeck Collection at the National Steinbeck Center started with a small donation of Steinbeck first-edition books in the 1960s. From humble origins and with the careful collecting and stewardship across decades by people dedicated to Steinbeck’s legacy, the Collection has grown to include approximately 40,000 items, ranging from manuscripts to newspaper clippings, and films to artwork.

The mission that drives the collection, preservation, and sharing of the items in the Steinbeck Collection is to document and share Steinbeck’s legacy. To that end, the collection includes items as varied as John Steinbeck’s life and experiences as a student, war correspondent, novelist, State Department emissary, and Nobel Laureate.

The highlights of the Collection are further described below. For more information about other parts of the Collection, such as foreign editions of Steinbeck’s works, critical analysis and review of Steinbeck’s life and writing, art, or film, please contact the Archivist at [email protected]

Agricultural and Local History

Correspondence

Manuscripts

Pauline Pearson Oral Histories

Steinbeck Family Artifacts

Contact the archivist.

Please contact Guest Services for Archive Showings or Docent-led Tours at 831.775.4721

In an effort to support our amazing educators, we have officially launched the  National Steinbeck Center’s Educational Resources  web page, where you will find interactive lesson plans from our award-winning  Red Pony  curriculum, fun activities, interactive content and more that can be enjoyed from the comfort of your home.

The Time the Wolves Ate the Vice Principal

Interactive Activity 8 – Teaching The Pearl Curriculum Guide: Writing an I AM Poem

Poetry is a creative form of writing that allows people to express their feelings and ideas through the use of distinctive style and rhythm. Use the “I AM” model below to craft a poem from the point of view of a character from John Steinbeck’s novels or short stories. You can also choose to write one after a literary character that you read about recently. The poem should be no longer than one page. Study the poem on the second page to give you a better idea of how your poem can look like.

Let’s celebrate National Poetry Month together by show us your dramatic reading abilities and recording yourself (with your parent/guardian’s permission) reading it out loud portraying the character you chose and hash tagging  #SteinbeckFromHome  for a chance to be featured in our social media accounts. Be creative and have fun!

Interactive Activity 7 – Share Your Family Stories

Did you know that John Steinbeck’s maternal grandfather, Samuel Hamilton, was from Ireland and was one of the pioneer settlers of the town of Salinas during the 1850s? Steinbeck’s family history can be traced all the way back to his European roots. While we are all spending more quality time with our families at home, why not dive into your families’ histories and discover new tales about your past and ancestors.

Straight from our National Steinbeck Center Vault we are sharing a set of bilingual activities from our “A Century Ago in Steinbeck Country” Curriculum for Grade 3 that will provide students with a model for asking the right questions to dig deeper into their family history and find some true gems.  Download the “Family Stories Lesson Plan for Grade 3” activities from the link above or  click here !

Interactive Activity 6 – Steinbeck Scavenger Hunt

Today we invite you to take your Steinbeck knowledge and powers of deduction by participating in our virtual scavenger hunt! Download the clues from the link above (or click here) and use our virtual museum tour by visiting here (or here: www.steinbeck.org/visit/virtual-tour) to find the answers to the questions.

Record the time that it takes you to complete it and share it on our social media: www.facebook.com/nationalsteinbeckcenter!

Interactive activity 5 – interactive activity 5 – steinbeck crossword puzzle.

Interactive Activity 4 – “Steinbeck Lotería / Mexican Bingo” Lesson Plan

Today we’re going to have a fun bilingual activity with “Steinbeck Lotería / Mexican Bingo”!

All the materials you will need to play this game are available on the download link above, including instructions and “Lotería” game cards. If you have any questions or if you’d like to suggest more interactive lesson plans, please send us an email to: [email protected].

We also invite you to take a video or photo of your favorite board games and tag us @steinbeckcenter on your posts and we will share our favorites on our Instagram stories.

Interactive Activity 3 – “Preparing a Veterinarian Report” Lesson Plan

Today we’ll discover what it’s like to be a vet and learn about the fascinating world of horses! Tag us on social media with the hashtag  #SteinbeckCenter  with your favorite animal friend for a chance to be featured in our stories!

“No matter how good a man is, there’s always some horse can pitch him.”  

-john steinbeck, the red pony, interactive activity 2 – “writing a letter” lesson plan.

Nowadays, writing letters can be a fun and quarantine-compliant way to show solidarity with one another. Learn to write a compelling letter to your favorite recipient by downloading our  Red Pony  curriculum  “Writing a Letter”  lesson plan from our Educational Resources web page.

During John Steinbeck’s lifetime, letter writing was one of the most popular forms of communication.

Interactive Activity 1 – Steinbeck Coloring Sheets

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MAD AT THE WORLD A Life of John Steinbeck By William Souder

John Steinbeck (1902-68) might well be one of those once-popular authors whose names we recognize but whom no one reads beyond junior high. Still, his affecting novels about besieged migrant workers and itinerant day laborers may come back into vogue now that the country, if not the world, faces an economic crisis whose proportions have already been compared to, and may far outdistance, those of the Great Depression.

Certainly William Souder, in “Mad at the World,” his admiring new biography, believes Steinbeck should get another, sympathetic look. Hailing him as a “major figure in American literature,” Souder further claims Steinbeck has “given the world several books that would last forever.” Of course, forever is a very long time, more than Steinbeck himself thought he merited. When asked if he deserved the Nobel Prize he was awarded in 1962, Steinbeck modestly replied, “Frankly, no.”

To Souder, the author of a fine biography of John James Audubon, Steinbeck was “simply being his angry, contrarian self.” As he frames it, anger was the novelist’s full-throated response to injustice, and it “had driven him to greatness.”

Yet to the reader Steinbeck seems less angry than shy, driven and occasionally cruel — an insecure, talented and largely uninteresting man who blunted those insecurities by writing. “I work because I know it gives me pleasure to work,” Steinbeck once said. Not much else seemed to do that, except maybe booze.

[ This book was one of our most anticipated titles of October. See the full list . ]

Born in Salinas, Calif., in 1902, to supportive middle-class parents, Steinbeck entered Stanford in 1919, where his favorite teacher, Edith Mirrielees, herself a published author, advised him to head to Paris if he wanted to write. But Steinbeck was essentially a loner, so he stayed back in Palo Alto, never graduating but piling up stories while living by himself in a shed.

Though he briefly tried his luck in New York City, to be “closer to the heart of the publishing world,” by 1926 he was back in California, working as the caretaker for an estate near Lake Tahoe. There he planned to write a novel in the self-imposed isolation of two long winters. Imitating the satiric fantasist James Branch Cabell and Thomas Malory, whose “Le Morte d’Arthur” he adored, Steinbeck produced the deservedly forgotten “Cup of Gold” in 1929, just months before the stock market crash.

The next year, Steinbeck married the first of his three wives, Carol Henning, whom he’d met in Tahoe City, and soon the couple were living rent-free in the Steinbeck family summer cottage in Pacific Grove. Their 10-year marriage “made him a writer,” Souder writes. Carol was not only Steinbeck’s typist, she also deftly edited his prose. And she pricked Steinbeck’s political conscience, urging him to attend the meetings of the Communist-affiliated John Reed Club, though Steinbeck never became a member. He felt the organizers were browbeating farmworkers, and he “detested bullies,” Souder notes.

That same year, in 1931, Steinbeck met Ed Ricketts, whose work influenced the environmentalist Rachel Carson, the subject of Souder’s fine 2012 biography. Ricketts was a charismatic, self-taught marine biologist and proto-ecologist who drew people to his lab in Monterey with his “non-teleological thinking,” which Steinbeck took to mean the “underlying pattern” of the world, that which just is .

Steinbeck seems to have used Ricketts as the model for a character in his novel “In Dubious Battle”: the dispassionate Doc Burton, who considers a workers’ strike a sort of ecosystem. “A man in a group isn’t himself at all,” Doc says; “he’s a cell in an organism that isn’t like him any more than the cells in your body are like you.” It was a concept to which Steinbeck would return in several of his books.

By that point Steinbeck had already published the beloved coming-of-age story “The Red Pony,” as well as the hugely successful novel “Tortilla Flat,” both of which he wrote while at his mother’s deathbed, in 1933. Steinbeck’s human side is best revealed in these passages in which he’s caring for both of his parents at the end of their lives. Despite his grief, though, there’s something ebullient about the way “Tortilla Flat” romanticizes the mixed-race individualists who dwell in the hills above Monterey.

That novel, like “In Dubious Battle,” was acquired by Pascal Covici, who would remain Steinbeck’s loyal publisher for three decades, ending up at Viking. (Steinbeck had also managed to secure the savvy literary agents Elizabeth Otis and Mavis McIntosh.) In 1937, he produced another hit: the poignant and streamlined (if schematic) “Of Mice and Men,” brought to Broadway almost immediately by George S. Kaufman.

Steinbeck kept writing. “The clock is running down,” he said at just 39. Maniacally, he counted the number of words he produced each day. “Life was leaking out of him,” Souder rhapsodizes, “slipping away into the oblivion waiting for him in death.”

Perhaps; but after The San Francisco News assigned Steinbeck to write a series about the pathetic living conditions of the Dust Bowl refugees in California’s San Joaquin Valley, he actively began “The Grapes of Wrath,” his touching 1939 novel about the hegira of these Oklahoma sharecroppers. The Joad family is a single, self-protective biological collective, with Ma Joad at its nurturing center: “It’s all one flow,” she says. “Woman looks at it like that. We ain’t gonna die out.” With these stereotypes in place, Steinbeck’s characters remain remote specimens — as the critic Alfred Kazin put it, they stay “on the verge of becoming human, but never do.” Yet, immediate and concrete and written more out of sorrow — and hope — than anger, the novel became an anthem of the Depression. “Steinbeck’s writing had merged with history,” Souder enthusiastically declares.

No longer living on a shoestring, the Steinbecks built a house in the Santa Cruz foothills. He and Carol traveled; they were friends with Charlie Chaplin. Shrinking from fame and plagued by “dreaded, soul-crushing celebrity,” Steinbeck nonetheless courted Hollywood notables, who courted him back, and though he complained about never having enough money, “Tortilla Flat,” “Of Mice and Men” and the Pulitzer Prize-winning “The Grapes of Wrath” were all adapted for the screen.

But success may have destroyed his marriage. While visiting Los Angeles, Steinbeck had begun an affair with Gwen Conger, a 19-year-old “lit fuse” (Souder’s term) who would become his second wife and the mother of their sons. At the same time, John and Carol joined Ricketts on a voyage to collect marine specimens in the waters off Lower California. The journal the men kept over the six-week trip would be published a decade later as the lyrical nonfiction book “Sea of Cortez.”

Souder’s sympathy for Steinbeck (and Ricketts) is most effective and eloquent in his depiction of the California landscape or of the sea, which he describes as swimming with small pelagic crabs “like a crimson carpet spread across an ocean the color of lapis lazuli.” Often, though, he slips into generalities about writers or writing: “Loneliness — that was the writer’s lot,” he tells us, “the nature of the trade.” Yet he recoils at Steinbeck’s machismo and disregard for the feelings of most women (except his third wife, Elaine). Of Steinbeck’s boasting to a former girlfriend about the details of his supposed sexual prowess, Souder dryly observes, “What a gift to women he fancied himself.”

Similarly, the biographer also balks at Steinbeck’s treatment of his sons. Discovering that his 3-year-old had let his dog into their apartment, where the dog made a mess, Steinbeck grabbed the child and rubbed his face in it. When this same son returned from Vietnam, was arrested for marijuana possession and then testified before Congress about drug use among soldiers, Steinbeck never spoke to him again. (Defending Steinbeck, Souder speculates that the novelist’s cruelty might have stemmed from the concussion he sustained while serving as a war correspondent during World War II.)

After Pearl Harbor, Steinbeck had gone to London and North Africa for The New York Herald Tribune, and later he briefly covered Vietnam. His prolific range, as Souder rightly notes, included an unusual variety of genres, from journalism to screenplays, notably an early version of Alfred Hitchcock’s “Lifeboat.” There were the later novels, too, such as “East of Eden,” in 1952, loosely based on his mother’s family, with its evocation (once more) of a bucolic California. And in 1962, suspecting the end was near, Steinbeck published the nonfiction “Travels With Charley,” based on his road trip across America and his conversations with real Americans. But the journalistic veracity of the book was questionable: According to his son, Steinbeck couldn’t have spoken to all those people, for “he couldn’t have handled that amount of interaction.” True to form, Steinbeck stilled his demons with yet another tale.

Brenda Wineapple is the author, most recently, of “The Impeachers: The Trial of Andrew Johnson and the Dream of a Just Nation.”

MAD AT THE WORLD A Life of John Steinbeck By William Souder Illustrated. 446 pp. W.W. Norton & Company. $32.

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Brief Biography of John Steinbeck

Born in Salinas, California on February 27, 1902, John Steinbeck remains the quintessential California writer. Beginning in the 1930s, he forged a significant place in the culture and letters of the United States as a writer deeply engaged with place, with marginalized workers and ordinary people, and with the political and social human dramas that confronted him. More than any other writer of the United States in the 1900s, he remained engaged in the struggles of his country. He wrote social histories in the 1930s; deeply ecological works in the 1940s; early accounts of the Cold War when covering the Soviet Union in 1947; cultural studies of Mexico and Mexicans from the mid-1930s to the mid-1950s; and in the 1960s increasingly concerned essays about the people of the United States, including accounts of the U.S. war in Vietnam. John Steinbeck, winner of the 1962 Nobel Prize, wrote as the conscience of his country for nearly 40 years. He died 1968-12-20 in his New York City apartment. ‍

Classroom Connections

Vocabulary list.

by John Steinbeck

The pearl quiz 1.

• 1 Which of the songs does Kino remember when he awakes? Song of the Family Song of the Pearl That Might Be Song of the Undersea Song of Evil
• 2 In which village does this story take place? La Paz Los Alamos Phoenix Salinas
• 3 Which of the following is not part of the reason why the doctor does not want to treat Coyotito? Greed Longstanding grudge against Juan Tomas Dissatisfaction with his situation Racism
• 4 What does Juana do that stops the swelling from Coyotito's shoulder? She uses a seaweed poultice. She uses herbs from her garden. She prays to God for help. She continually sucks out the poison.
• 5 Which of the songs does Kino remember when the scorpion stings Coyotito? Song of the Child Song of Treachery Song of Evil Song of Poison
• 6 From where did Kino get his canoe? He had stolen it years before. It was passed down from his grandfather. It was given to him by Juan Tomas. He bought it with his meager savings.
• 7 What does Juan Tomas say when Kino departs from him? Go With God In this life or the next, you will have your vengeance. May Jesus protect you. Farewell forever, my brother.
• 8 Which of the following does not happen to Kino the night after he defies the dealers? He is attacked. His hut is burned. Coyotito is kidnapped His boat is broken.
• 9 Which of these persons does Kino not encounter after he finds the pearl? The Banker The Doctor The Priest The Pearl Dealer
• 10 Which of the songs best illustrates Kino's hope for the future? Song of the Rifle Song of the Pearl That Might Be Song of the Family Song of the Child
• 11 What is the name that Kino gives to the pearl? The Pearl of the World The Pearl of the Sea The Pearl of Hope The Pearl of Good Fortune
• 12 Which of the following does a La Paz townsperson not propose that he would do with the money, if he had found the pearl? Give the money to the poor of La Paz. Give the money to start a school for the children of La Paz. Buy Masses for his family for a thousand years. Give the money to the Pope.
• 13 What is significant about Kino's suggestion that he buy a rifle? It shows that he is a violent man who will easily kill. It permits Kino to think of the various other things that he will get with the money. It foreshadows how Kino will later defend himself with a rifle. It suggests that Kino thinks only of frivolous, self-interested things.
• 14 Which of the following does Kino not think of doing with the money? Paying for Coyotito to be educated. Buying a new home. Getting married in a church. Buying a rifle
• 15 According to Kino, what is his soul? Coyotito Juana The Pearl The Song of the Family
• 16 Why does Kino go naked in the forest? Without his white clothing, he is less likely to be seen. The trackers take his clothing, thinking he hid the pearl in there. He has abandoned all of the trappings of civilization. Juana is washing his clothes, and he cannot retrieve them.
• 17 What is the significance of Kino's refusal to accept the dealer's price? He alienates the only people who may be able to help him. He creates a sense of animosity between him and his neighbors. He has defied the societal hierarchy that dominates La Paz. He shows himself to be a prideful and egotistical man.
• 18 Which of the following is not significant about the various songs? They serve as communication between Kino and his family. They illustrate his attentiveness to factors around him. They connect Kino to a larger tradition. They express Kino's emotions and thoughts.
• 19 With what object does Kino return to La Paz? Rifle Broken pearl Canoe Horse
• 20 Which of the following does the pearl not represent? Avarice Hope for the future Death Social mobility
• 21 Which of the following statements best describes Juana? She is the only character who displays hope for the future. She represents womanhood in contrast to Kino's representation of everyman. She illustrates the theme of the corrupting influence of wealth. She is the only person who realizes how dangerous the pearl can be.
• 22 What is the meaning of the statement "I am a man" to Juana? It means that Kino does not want to be confused with an animal. It means that Kino is embarrassed at the disrespect he receives. It means that Kino wishes to justify his actions to his wife. It means that Kino is half-insane and half-god.
• 23 Which of the following is not significant about the canoe? It is the one tangible piece of property that Kino owns. It represents what Kino wishes to gain from his newfound fortune. It is one of the losses that Kino suffers because of the pearl. It represents a piece of Kino's family history.
• 24 What does the doctor do that shows his true reason for visiting Kino? He attempts to discern where the pearl is hidden. He asks Kino to pay him with the pearl. He gives Coyotito unnecessary treatment. He tells Kino that he should accept the dealers' offer.
• 25 What is Kino's reaction when he finds the pearl? He embraces Coyotito. He howls. He weeps. He prays.

The Pearl Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for The Pearl is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

-other pearl divers

-rest of the people in village

What does Kino mean by, “This pearl has become my soul. “If I give it up I shall lose my soul…” Do you agree with him?

Kino allows the pearl to consume his life at the expense of everything else he holds dear. Do I agree with him? Money is nothing when compared with the people who love you...... absolutely not.

describe the setting of the novel "The Pearl"

The setting is a Mexican coastal village called La Paz, probably on the Baja Peninsula. The time is not mentioned although many feel it looks like the late 18th ot early 19th century.

Study Guide for The Pearl

The Pearl study guide contains a biography of John Steinbeck, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About The Pearl
• The Pearl Summary
• The Pearl Video
• Character List
• Chapter 1 Summary and Analysis

Essays for The Pearl

The Pearl literature essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of The Pearl.

• The Pearl versus The Secret River
• The Pearl: Symbolism Analysis
• A Dollar Cannot Buy a Smile: Riches vs. Happiness in 'The Pearl'
• Women as a Voice of Reason in John Steinbeck’s “The Pearl”
• An Analysis of Imagery and Mood in John Steinbeck’s “The Pearl”

Lesson Plan for The Pearl

• About the Author
• Study Objectives
• Common Core Standards
• Introduction to The Pearl
• Relationship to Other Books
• Bringing in Technology
• Notes to the Teacher
• Related Links
• The Pearl Bibliography

Wikipedia Entries for The Pearl

• Introduction

• World History

A&E Biography of John Steinbeck Guiding Questions Answer Key

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• The Red Pony, Chrysanthemums, and Flight

John Steinbeck

• Literature Notes
• John Steinbeck Biography
• Summary and Analysis
• The Red Pony
• The Chrysanthemums
• Essay Questions
• Cite this Literature Note

John Steinbeck was the type of author who liked to know his material firsthand. He was not content to narrate a story that had no basis in fact. Thus many of his works take place in California and deal with subjects that he thoroughly understood. One of the finest attributes of  The Red Pony  is the feeling that the author knew his material and his characters in great depth. The scenes in this novel, such as the episode when a mare must be killed in order to save her colt, are narrated with the skill of a person who has witnessed such an act.

Steinbeck's father settled in California shortly after the American Civil War. John Steinbeck was born in Salinas, California, on February 27, 1902. His mother was a schoolteacher in the public school system in Salinas. Steinbeck grew up in this beautiful, fertile California valley where he found the materials for most of his novels. His imagination was kindled by writing at a very early age partly because his mother, the schoolteacher, read to him from the famous literature of the world.

During his formative years, he played various sports in high school, worked at many different jobs, and wandered around the countryside observing the phenomena of nature. He entered Stanford University in 1920, and even though he remained until 1925, he never graduated. While in college, he attempted some creative writing that was submitted to magazines and was rejected. Not caring to complete the requirements for a degree and hoping to earn a living as an author, he left Stanford permanently in 1925 to live in New York. While he continued his writing and while he continually received rejection slips, he worked briefly for the New York American newspaper and as a laborer on the construction of Madison Square Garden before returning to California. His first novel, Cup of Gold, appeared in 1929, two months before the unprecedented and horrific stock market crash and only sold some fifteen hundred copies.

In two respects, 1930 was a notable year for Steinbeck: He married Carol Henning and the newlyweds settled in staid Pacific Grove, which he often satirized. There, Steinbeck met Ed Ricketts, whose friendship strongly influenced Steinbeck's work. Ricketts, the owner of a biological supply laboratory on Monterey's Cannery Row, became the hero of "The Snake," Cannery Row, and Sweet Thursday, as well as a collaborator in writing The Sea of Cortez.

During the era of "The Hungry Thirties" — an era of Depression, bread lines, and bloody, labor-management conflicts — Steinbeck knew a definitive cross-section of society and shared the problems and stresses of the times. His father, like many men, miraculously helped the family to survive the Depression with a small house and twenty-five dollars a month. Steinbeck continued his writing and received four hundred dollars for the first of his California novels, The Pastures of Heaven (1932). In 1933, To a God Unknown, a complicated, unsuccessful allegory, failed to repay the publisher's two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar advance. Both publishers declared bankruptcy. That same year North American Review bought the first two parts of The Red Pony, and some short stories, including "Murder," which was selected as an 0. Henry Prize story for 1934 and brought Steinbeck his first national recognition.

Tortilla Flat (1935) was an immediate and popular success and won him the Gold Medal of the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco for the year's best novel by a Californian, even though critics missed the point of the droll humor about the unemployed drifters of Monterey. Steinbeck received three or four thousand dollars for the Hollywood film rights, which had a heartening effect upon a man accustomed to earning thirty-five dollars a week.

During 1935, he tried writing in Mexico, but returned to Los Gatos, California. In Dubious Battle (1936) dealt with a labor strike and aroused the critics' fury as Steinbeck had predicted. With a demand for his controversial work, he placed short stories in Esquire and Harper's and wrote a series of articles for the San Francisco News concerning life in California's migrant labor camps, material that he partly utilized later for The Grapes of Wrath.

Of Mice and Men (1937), a popular and a critical success, was selected by the Book-of-the- Month Club, and shortly afterward, Steinbeck was selected as one of the Ten Outstanding Young Men of the Year. After touring England, Ireland, Russia, and Sweden, he published a play version of the book with the famous playwright, George Kaufman. Steinbeck became a celebrity when the play enjoyed a long run, and he won the New York Drama Critics Circle's award on the first ballot.

Unsurprisingly, however, the night that Of Mice and Men opened on Broadway, Steinbeck was living in a migrant camp. In preparation for writing his novels, Steinbeck would often live, work, and be with the people about whom he was to write. Thus, in preparation for writing The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck went to Oklahoma, joined some migrants and rode with them to California. In California, he stayed with the migrants, living with them in "Hoovervilles," joining them in their search for work and attempting as nearly as possible to come to terms with their essential characteristics. Leaving them, he made several trips to various camps to observe firsthand the living and working conditions of migrants. He wrote some short pieces in which he described the plight of these people and he pleaded for a more tolerant approach in dealing with them. These articles, however, were not very effective. It was only when he molded his new experiences into a novel that positive effects were achieved.

The appearance of The Grapes of Wrath was the major publishing event of 1939. Publishers Weekly listed the novel as the best seller of 1939 and the eighth ranking book of 1940. It was estimated that over half a million copies of the original printing were sold. In addition to several American editions, there have been numerous foreign editions and translations. The novel was later made into an important social-protest film. Also in 1940, Steinbeck was elected to membership in the National Institute of Arts and Letters and won the Pulitzer Prize for the best novel of the year, as well as the American Booksellers' Award.

In 1939 and 1940, Steinbeck set off with Ed Ricketts for expeditions to the Gulf of California, later documented in The Sea of Cortez. He also went to Mexico to film The Forgotten Village, a semi-documentary about introducing medicine into a suspicious community.

During 1942, his wife sued for divorce and that same year the Army Air Force requested a promotional book, Bombs Away, to popularize its flight training program and to allay parental fears about flying. Steinbeck gave the royalties to the Air Forces Aid Society.

Steinbeck's World War II works include the play-novella, The Moon Is Down, for which he was decorated by the King of Norway in recognition of the book's contribution to the liberation effort. His film scenario, Lifeboat, is sometimes thought to be his most significant war writing. His human-interest articles, written while he was a special war correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune from June to December, 1943, appeared as a collection, Once There Was a War, in 1958, and it seems that Steinbeck had considered a novel about the war, but in The Wide World of John Steinbeck, Peter Lisca comments that Steinbeck was "too disheartened by what he had seen of the war to prolong the experience in any way and he decided not to publish it."

After the war, Steinbeck devoted himself to novels ( East of Eden, for example), travels, film scripts, and editorials. In 1962, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature, the highest honor a writer can receive. He died December 20, 1968.

Next The Red Pony

• World Biography

John Steinbeck Biography

Born: February 27, 1902 Salinas, California Died: December 20, 1968 New York, New York American writer

John Steinbeck, American author and winner of the Nobel Prize in 1962, was a leading writer of novels about the working class and was a major spokesman for the victims of the Great Depression (a downturn in the American system of producing, distributing, and using goods and services in the 1930s, and during which time millions of people lost their jobs).

John Ernst Steinbeck was born on February 27, 1902, in Salinas, California, the only son of John Ernst Steinbeck Sr. and Olive Hamilton. His father was a bookkeeper and accountant who served for many years as the treasurer of Monterey County, California. Steinbeck received his love of literature from his mother, who was interested in the arts. His favorite book, and a main influence on his writing, was Sir Thomas Malory's (c. 1408–1471) Le Morte d'Arthur, a collection of the legends of King Arthur. Steinbeck decided while in high school that he wanted to be a writer. He also enjoyed playing sports and worked during the summer on various ranches.

Steinbeck worked as a laboratory assistant and farm laborer to support himself through six years of study at Stanford University, where he took only those courses that interested him without seeking a degree. In 1925 he traveled to New York (by way of the Panama Canal) on a freighter (boat that carries inventory). After arriving in New York, he worked as a reporter and as part of a construction crew building Madison Square Garden. During this time he was also collecting impressions for his first novel. Cup of Gold (1929) was an unsuccessful attempt at romance involving the pirate Henry Morgan.

Begins writing seriously

Undiscouraged, Steinbeck returned to California to begin work as a writer of serious fiction. A collection of short stories, The Pastures of Heaven (1932), contained vivid descriptions of rural (farm) life among the "unfinished children of nature" in his native California valley. His second novel, To a God Unknown (1933), was his strongest statement about man's relationship to the land. With Tortilla Flat (1935) Steinbeck received critical and popular success; there are many critics who consider it his most artistically satisfying work.

Steinbeck next dealt with the problems of labor unions in In Dubious Battle (1936), an effective story of a strike (when workers all decide to stop working as a form of protest against unfair treatment) by local grape pickers. Of Mice and Men (1937), first conceived as a play, is a tightly constructed novella (short novel) about an unusual friendship between two migrant workers (laborers who travel to wherever there is available work, usually on farms). Although the book is powerfully written and often moving, some critics feel that it lacks a moral vision.

Steinbeck's series of articles for the San Francisco Chronicle on the problems of migrant farm laborers provided material for The Grapes of Wrath (1939), his major novel and the finest working-class novel of the 1930s. The Grapes of Wrath relates the struggle of a family of Oklahoma tenant farmers forced to turn over their land to the banks. The family then journeys across the vast plains to the promised land of California—only to be met with scorn when they arrive. It is a successful example of social protest in fiction, as well as a convincing tribute to man's will to survive. The Grapes of Wrath received the Pulitzer Prize in 1940.

Other subjects

During World War II (1939–45), which the United States entered to help other nations battle Germany, Italy, and Japan, Steinbeck served as a foreign correspondent. From this experience came such nonfiction as Bombs Away: The Story of a Bomber Team (1942); Once There Was a War (1958), a collection of Steinbeck's dispatches from 1943; and A Russian Journal (1948), with photographs by Robert Capa. More interesting nonfiction of this period is The Sea of Cortez, coauthored with scientist Edward F. Ricketts. This account of the two explorers' research into sea life provides an important key to many of the themes and attitudes featured in Steinbeck's novels.

Steinbeck's fiction during the 1940s includes The Moon Is Down (1942), a tale of the Norwegian resistance to occupation by the Nazis (German ruling party that scorned democracy and considered all non-German people, especially Jews, inferior); Cannery Row (1944), a return to the setting of Tortilla Flat; The Wayward Bus (1947); and The Pearl, a popular novella about a poor Mexican fisherman who discovers a valuable pearl that brings bad luck to his family.

Later decline

In the 1950s Steinbeck's artistic decline was evident with a series of novels that were overly sentimental, stuffy, and lacking in substance. The author received modest critical praise in 1961 for his more ambitious novel The Winter of Our Discontent, a study of the moral disintegration (falling apart) of a man of high ideals. In 1962 Travels with Charley, a pleasantly humorous account of his travels through America with his pet poodle, was well received. Following the popular success of the latter work, Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize.

Steinbeck's work remains popular in both the United States and Europe, chiefly for its social consciousness and concern and for the narrative qualities displayed in the early novels. Although he refused to settle into political conservatism (preferring to maintain traditions and resist change) in his later years, his all-embracing support of American values and acceptance of all national policies, including the Vietnam War (1955–75; conflict in which the United States fought against Communist North Vietnam when they invaded Democratic South Vietnam), lost him the respect of many liberal (preferring social change) intellectuals who had once admired his social commitments. He died on December 20, 1968, in New York City.

For More Information

Benson, Jackson J. John Steinbeck, Writer: A Biography. New York; Penguin Books, 1990.

Lynch, Audry. Steinbeck Remembered. Santa Barbara: Fithian Press, 2000.

Moore, Harry T. The Novels of John Steinbeck: A First Critical Study. Chicago: Normandie House, 1939, revised edition 1977.

Parini, Jay. John Steinbeck: A Biography. New York: H. Holt, 1995.

Steinbeck, John IV, and Nancy Steinbeck. The Other Side of Eden: Life with John Steinbeck. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2001.

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John Ernst Steinbeck's Biography

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