He arrived in the United States in 1858, shortening the family name to Steinbeck.
Their correspondence continued until Steinbeck's death. In 1966, Steinbeck traveled to Tel Aviv to visit the site of Mount Hope, a farm community established in Israel by his grandfather, whose brother, Friedrich Großsteinbeck, was murdered by Arab marauders in 1858 in what became known as the Outrages at Jaffa. ==Death and legacy== John Steinbeck died in New York City on December 20, 1968, during the 1968 flu pandemic of [disease] and congestive heart failure.
His works frequently explored the themes of fate and injustice, especially as applied to downtrodden or everyman protagonists. ==Early life== Steinbeck was born on February 27, 1902, in Salinas, California.
2013. ===Further reading=== ==External links== National Steinbeck Center in Salinas, California FBI file on John Steinbeck The Steinbeck Quarterly journal John Steinbeck Biography Early Years: Salinas to Stanford: 1902–1925 from National Steinbeck Center Western American Literature Journal: John Steinbeck Cuernavaca, Mexico, 1945 - Mrs.
He had considerable mechanical aptitude and fondness for repairing things he owned. Steinbeck graduated from Salinas High School in 1919 and went on to study English literature at Stanford University near Palo Alto, leaving without a degree in 1925.
He had considerable mechanical aptitude and fondness for repairing things he owned. Steinbeck graduated from Salinas High School in 1919 and went on to study English literature at Stanford University near Palo Alto, leaving without a degree in 1925.
When he failed to publish his work, he returned to California and worked in 1928 as a tour guide and caretaker at Lake Tahoe, where he met Carol Henning, his first wife.
The elder Steinbecks gave John free housing, paper for his manuscripts, and from 1928, loans that allowed him to write without looking for work.
When Steinbeck became emotionally upset, Ricketts sometimes played music for him. ==Career== ===Writing=== Steinbeck's first novel, Cup of Gold, published in 1929, is loosely based on the life and death of privateer Henry Morgan.
They married in January 1930 in Los Angeles, where, with friends, he attempted to make money by manufacturing plaster mannequins. When their money ran out six months later due to a slow market, Steinbeck and Carol moved back to Pacific Grove, California, to a cottage owned by his father, on the Monterey Peninsula a few blocks outside the Monterey city limits.
Carol became the model for Mary Talbot in Steinbeck's novel Cannery Row. In 1930, Steinbeck met the marine biologist Ed Ricketts, who became a close friend and mentor to Steinbeck during the following decade, teaching him a great deal about philosophy and biology.
Meanwhile, Ricketts operated a biological lab on the coast of Monterey, selling biological samples of small animals, fish, rays, starfish, turtles, and other marine forms to schools and colleges. Between 1930 and 1936, Steinbeck and Ricketts became close friends.
It centers on Morgan's assault and sacking of the city of Panama, sometimes referred to as the "Cup of Gold", and on the women, brighter than the sun, who were said to be found there. Between 1930 and 1933, Steinbeck produced three shorter works.
It is completely out of hand; I mean a kind of hysteria about the book is growing that is not healthy." The film versions of The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men (by two different movie studios) were in production simultaneously, allowing Steinbeck to spend a full day on the set of The Grapes of Wrath and the next day on the set of Of Mice and Men. ===Ed Ricketts=== In the 1930s and 1940s, Ed Ricketts strongly influenced Steinbeck's writing.
In 1944, suffering from homesickness for his Pacific Grove/Monterey life of the 1930s, he wrote Cannery Row (1945), which became so famous that in 1958 Ocean View Avenue in Monterey, the setting of the book, was renamed Cannery Row. After the war, he wrote The Pearl (1947), knowing it would be filmed eventually.
At one point he was allowed to man a machine-gun watch position at night at a firebase while his son and other members of his platoon slept. ==Personal life== Steinbeck and his first wife, Carol Henning, married in January 1930 in Los Angeles.
As it is set in 1930s America, it provides an insight into The Great Depression, encompassing themes of racism, loneliness, prejudice against the mentally ill, and the struggle for personal independence.
The Pastures of Heaven, published in 1932, consists of twelve interconnected stories about a valley near Monterey, which was discovered by a Spanish corporal while chasing runaway Indian slaves.
John Steinbeck, Novels and Stories 1932–1937 (Library of America, 1994) DeMott, Robert and Steinbeck, Elaine A., eds.
It centers on Morgan's assault and sacking of the city of Panama, sometimes referred to as the "Cup of Gold", and on the women, brighter than the sun, who were said to be found there. Between 1930 and 1933, Steinbeck produced three shorter works.
In 1933 Steinbeck published The Red Pony, a 100-page, four-chapter story weaving in memories of Steinbeck's childhood.
He joined the League of American Writers, a Communist organization, in 1935.
Meanwhile, Ricketts operated a biological lab on the coast of Monterey, selling biological samples of small animals, fish, rays, starfish, turtles, and other marine forms to schools and colleges. Between 1930 and 1936, Steinbeck and Ricketts became close friends.
It is getting tiresome." The FBI denied that Steinbeck was under investigation. ==Major works== ===In Dubious Battle=== In 1936, Steinbeck published the first of what came to be known as his Dustbowl trilogy, which included Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath.
John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath and Other Writings 1936–1941 (Library of America, 1996) DeMott, Robert, ed.
This first novel tells the story of a fruit pickers' strike in California which is both aided and damaged by the help of "the Party", generally taken to be the Communist Party, although this is never spelled out in the book. ===Of Mice and Men=== Of Mice and Men is a tragedy that was written as a play in 1937.
Steinbeck wrote two more stage plays (The Moon Is Down and Burning Bright). Of Mice and Men was also adapted as a 1939 Hollywood film, with Lon Chaney, Jr.
According to The New York Times, it was the best-selling book of 1939 and 430,000 copies had been printed by February 1940.
In that month, it won the National Book Award, favorite fiction book of 1939, voted by members of the American Booksellers Association.
Claiming the book both was obscene and misrepresented conditions in the county, the Kern County Board of Supervisors banned the book from the county's publicly funded schools and libraries in August 1939.
The Grapes of Wrath was banned by school boards: in August 1939, the Kern County Board of Supervisors banned the book from the county's publicly funded schools and libraries.
In 1939, he signed a letter with some other writers in support of the Soviet invasion of Finland and the Soviet-established puppet government. Documents released by the Central Intelligence Agency in 2012 indicate that Steinbeck offered his services to the Agency in 1952, while planning a European tour, and the Director of Central Intelligence, Walter Bedell Smith, was eager to take him up on the offer.
It was made into a movie three times, in 1939 starring Burgess Meredith, Lon Chaney Jr., and Betty Field, in 1982 starring Randy Quaid, Robert Blake and Ted Neeley, and in 1992 starring Gary Sinise and John Malkovich. ===The Grapes of Wrath=== The Grapes of Wrath is set in the Great Depression and describes a family of sharecroppers, the Joads, who were driven from their land due to the dust storms of the Dust Bowl.
According to The New York Times, it was the best-selling book of 1939 and 430,000 copies had been printed by February 1940.
It is completely out of hand; I mean a kind of hysteria about the book is growing that is not healthy." The film versions of The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men (by two different movie studios) were in production simultaneously, allowing Steinbeck to spend a full day on the set of The Grapes of Wrath and the next day on the set of Of Mice and Men. ===Ed Ricketts=== In the 1930s and 1940s, Ed Ricketts strongly influenced Steinbeck's writing.
Their coauthored book, Sea of Cortez (December 1941), about a collecting expedition to the Gulf of California in 1940, which was part travelogue and part natural history, published just as the U.S.
The novel is an imaginative telling of a story which Steinbeck had heard in La Paz in 1940, as related in The Log From the Sea of Cortez, which he described in Chapter 11 as being "so much like a parable that it almost can't be".
By 1940, their marriage was beginning to suffer, and ended a year later, in 1941.
This ban lasted until January 1941. Of the controversy, Steinbeck wrote, "The vilification of me out here from the large landowners and bankers is pretty bad.
Their coauthored book, Sea of Cortez (December 1941), about a collecting expedition to the Gulf of California in 1940, which was part travelogue and part natural history, published just as the U.S.
This work remains in print today. Although Carol accompanied Steinbeck on the trip, their marriage was beginning to suffer, and ended a year later, in 1941, even as Steinbeck worked on the manuscript for the book.
Ecological themes recur in Steinbeck's novels of the period. Steinbeck's close relations with Ricketts ended in 1941 when Steinbeck moved away from Pacific Grove and divorced his wife Carol.
By 1940, their marriage was beginning to suffer, and ended a year later, in 1941.
It has been said that in the United States this book came as a welcome antidote to the gloom of the then prevailing depression." Tortilla Flat was adapted as a 1942 film of the same name, starring Spencer Tracy, Hedy Lamarr and John Garfield, a friend of Steinbeck.
In 1942, after his divorce from Carol he married Gwyndolyn "Gwyn" Conger. Ricketts was Steinbeck's model for the character of "Doc" in Cannery Row (1945) and Sweet Thursday (1954), "Friend Ed" in Burning Bright, and characters in In Dubious Battle (1936) and The Grapes of Wrath (1939).
In 1942, after his divorce from Carol, Steinbeck married Gwyndolyn "Gwyn" Conger.
By doing so, these people will naturally become the enemies of the political status quo." In a 1942 letter to United States Attorney General Francis Biddle, John Steinbeck wrote: "Do you suppose you could ask Edgar's boys to stop stepping on my heels? They think I am an enemy alien.
John Steinbeck, Novels 1942–1952 (Library of America, 2002) DeMott, Robert and Railsback, Brian, eds.
In 1945, Steinbeck received the King Haakon VII Freedom Cross for his literary contributions to the Norwegian resistance movement. In 1943, Steinbeck served as a World War II war correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune and worked with the Office of Strategic Services (predecessor of the CIA).
In 1944, suffering from homesickness for his Pacific Grove/Monterey life of the 1930s, he wrote Cannery Row (1945), which became so famous that in 1958 Ocean View Avenue in Monterey, the setting of the book, was renamed Cannery Row. After the war, he wrote The Pearl (1947), knowing it would be filmed eventually.
In 1945, Steinbeck received the King Haakon VII Freedom Cross for his literary contributions to the Norwegian resistance movement. In 1943, Steinbeck served as a World War II war correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune and worked with the Office of Strategic Services (predecessor of the CIA).
The story first appeared in the December 1945 issue of Woman's Home Companion magazine as "The Pearl of the World".
2013. ===Further reading=== ==External links== National Steinbeck Center in Salinas, California FBI file on John Steinbeck The Steinbeck Quarterly journal John Steinbeck Biography Early Years: Salinas to Stanford: 1902–1925 from National Steinbeck Center Western American Literature Journal: John Steinbeck Cuernavaca, Mexico, 1945 - Mrs.
Steinbeck traveled to Cuernavaca, Mexico for the filming with Wagner who helped with the script; on this trip he would be inspired by the story of Emiliano Zapata, and subsequently wrote a film script (Viva Zapata!) directed by Elia Kazan and starring Marlon Brando and Anthony Quinn. In 1947, Steinbeck made the first of many trips to the Soviet Union, this one with photographer Robert Capa.
John Steinbeck, Travels With Charley and Later Novels, 1947–1962 (Library of America, 2007) Benson, Jackson J.
Ricketts' biographer Eric Enno Tamm notes that, except for East of Eden (1952), Steinbeck's writing declined after Ricketts' untimely death in 1948. ===1940s–1960s work=== Steinbeck's novel The Moon Is Down (1942), about the Socrates-inspired spirit of resistance in an occupied village in Northern Europe, was made into a film almost immediately.
Steinbeck's 1948 book about their experiences, A Russian Journal, was illustrated with Capa's photos.
In 1948, the year the book was published, Steinbeck was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 1952 Steinbeck's longest novel, East of Eden, was published.
With his second wife Steinbeck had two sons, Thomas ("Thom") Myles Steinbeck (1944–2016) and John Steinbeck IV (1946–1991). In May 1948, Steinbeck returned to California on an emergency trip to be with his friend Ed Ricketts, who had been seriously injured when a train struck his car.
Steinbeck spent the year after Ricketts' death in deep depression. In June 1949, Steinbeck met stage-manager Elaine Scott at a restaurant in Carmel, California.
Steinbeck and Scott eventually began a relationship and in December 1950 they married, within a week of the finalizing of Scott's own divorce from actor Zachary Scott.
However, in 1951, Steinbeck republished the narrative portion of the book as The Log from the Sea of Cortez, under his name only (though Ricketts had written some of it).
In 1948, the year the book was published, Steinbeck was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 1952 Steinbeck's longest novel, East of Eden, was published.
According to his third wife, Elaine, he considered it his magnum opus, his greatest novel. In 1952, John Steinbeck appeared as the on-screen narrator of 20th Century Fox's film, O.
In 1939, he signed a letter with some other writers in support of the Soviet invasion of Finland and the Soviet-established puppet government. Documents released by the Central Intelligence Agency in 2012 indicate that Steinbeck offered his services to the Agency in 1952, while planning a European tour, and the Director of Central Intelligence, Walter Bedell Smith, was eager to take him up on the offer.
The book was published in 1952.
In 1953, he wrote that he considered cartoonist Al Capp, creator of the satirical Li'l Abner, "possibly the best writer in the world today." At his own first Nobel Prize press conference he was asked his favorite authors and works and replied: "Hemingway's short stories and nearly everything Faulkner wrote." In September 1964, President Lyndon B.
It was made into a 1955 movie directed by Elia Kazan and starring James Dean. ===Travels with Charley=== In 1960, Steinbeck bought a pickup truck and had it modified with a custom-built camper topwhich was rare at the timeand drove across the United States with his faithful "blue" standard poodle, Charley.
In June 1957, Steinbeck took a personal and professional risk by supporting him when Miller refused to name names in the House Un-American Activities Committee trials.
In 1944, suffering from homesickness for his Pacific Grove/Monterey life of the 1930s, he wrote Cannery Row (1945), which became so famous that in 1958 Ocean View Avenue in Monterey, the setting of the book, was renamed Cannery Row. After the war, he wrote The Pearl (1947), knowing it would be filmed eventually.
In 1958 the street that Steinbeck described as "Cannery Row" in the novel, once named Ocean View Avenue, was renamed Cannery Row in honor of the novel.
About the same time, Steinbeck recorded readings of several of his short stories for Columbia Records; the recordings provide a record of Steinbeck's deep, resonant voice. Following the success of Viva Zapata!, Steinbeck collaborated with Kazan on East of Eden, James Dean's film debut. In Search of America is a travelogue of his 1960 road trip with his poodle Charley.
One of his last published works was Travels with Charley, a travelogue of a road trip he took in 1960 to rediscover America. ===Commemoration=== Steinbeck's boyhood home, a turreted Victorian building in downtown Salinas, has been preserved and restored by the Valley Guild, a nonprofit organization.
It was made into a 1955 movie directed by Elia Kazan and starring James Dean. ===Travels with Charley=== In 1960, Steinbeck bought a pickup truck and had it modified with a custom-built camper topwhich was rare at the timeand drove across the United States with his faithful "blue" standard poodle, Charley.
In presenting the 1962 Nobel Prize to Steinbeck, the Swedish Academy cited "spicy and comic tales about a gang of paisanos, asocial individuals who, in their wild revels, are almost caricatures of King Arthur's Knights of the Round Table.
It was critically acclaimed and Steinbeck's 1962 Nobel Prize citation called it a "little masterpiece". Its stage production was a hit, starring Wallace Ford as George and Broderick Crawford as George's companion, the mentally childlike, but physically powerful itinerant farmhand Lennie.
This third marriage for Steinbeck lasted until his death in 1968. In 1962, Steinbeck began acting as friend and mentor to the young writer and naturalist Jack Rudloe, who was trying to establish his own biological supply company, now Gulf Specimen Marine Laboratory in Florida.
Steinbeck called the period one of the "strangest and most frightening times a government and people have ever faced." In 1963, Steinbeck visited the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic at the behest of John Kennedy.
In 1953, he wrote that he considered cartoonist Al Capp, creator of the satirical Li'l Abner, "possibly the best writer in the world today." At his own first Nobel Prize press conference he was asked his favorite authors and works and replied: "Hemingway's short stories and nearly everything Faulkner wrote." In September 1964, President Lyndon B.
Their correspondence continued until Steinbeck's death. In 1966, Steinbeck traveled to Tel Aviv to visit the site of Mount Hope, a farm community established in Israel by his grandfather, whose brother, Friedrich Großsteinbeck, was murdered by Arab marauders in 1858 in what became known as the Outrages at Jaffa. ==Death and legacy== John Steinbeck died in New York City on December 20, 1968, during the 1968 flu pandemic of [disease] and congestive heart failure.
Johnson awarded Steinbeck the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 1967, at the behest of Newsday magazine, Steinbeck went to Vietnam to report on the war.
Footage of this visit filmed by Rafael Aramyan was sold in 2013 by his granddaughter. In 1967, when he was sent to Vietnam to report on the war, his sympathetic portrayal of the United States Army led the New York Post to denounce him for betraying his liberal past.
This third marriage for Steinbeck lasted until his death in 1968. In 1962, Steinbeck began acting as friend and mentor to the young writer and naturalist Jack Rudloe, who was trying to establish his own biological supply company, now Gulf Specimen Marine Laboratory in Florida.
Their correspondence continued until Steinbeck's death. In 1966, Steinbeck traveled to Tel Aviv to visit the site of Mount Hope, a farm community established in Israel by his grandfather, whose brother, Friedrich Großsteinbeck, was murdered by Arab marauders in 1858 in what became known as the Outrages at Jaffa. ==Death and legacy== John Steinbeck died in New York City on December 20, 1968, during the 1968 flu pandemic of [disease] and congestive heart failure.
An autopsy showed nearly complete occlusion of the main coronary arteries. In accordance with his wishes, his body was cremated, and interred on March 4, 1969 at the Hamilton family gravesite in Salinas, with those of his parents and maternal grandparents.
It was made into a movie three times, in 1939 starring Burgess Meredith, Lon Chaney Jr., and Betty Field, in 1982 starring Randy Quaid, Robert Blake and Ted Neeley, and in 1992 starring Gary Sinise and John Malkovich. ===The Grapes of Wrath=== The Grapes of Wrath is set in the Great Depression and describes a family of sharecroppers, the Joads, who were driven from their land due to the dust storms of the Dust Bowl.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1982.
The Hayashi Steinbeck Bibliography, 1982–1996.
Boston : Twayne, 1989.
According to the American Library Association Steinbeck was one of the ten most frequently banned authors from 1990 to 2004, with Of Mice and Men ranking sixth out of 100 such books in the United States. ===Literary influences=== Steinbeck grew up in California's Salinas Valley, a culturally diverse place with a rich migratory and immigrant history.
Durham: Duke UP, 1990 . Davis, Robert C.
"John Steinbeck, Writer" Penguin Putnam Inc., second edition, New York, 1990, 0-14-01.4417X, Steigerwald, Bill.
Another film based on the novella was made in 1992 starring Gary Sinise as George and John Malkovich as Lennie. Steinbeck followed this wave of success with The Grapes of Wrath (1939), based on newspaper articles about migrant agricultural workers that he had written in San Francisco.
It was made into a movie three times, in 1939 starring Burgess Meredith, Lon Chaney Jr., and Betty Field, in 1982 starring Randy Quaid, Robert Blake and Ted Neeley, and in 1992 starring Gary Sinise and John Malkovich. ===The Grapes of Wrath=== The Grapes of Wrath is set in the Great Depression and describes a family of sharecroppers, the Joads, who were driven from their land due to the dust storms of the Dust Bowl.
John Steinbeck, Novels and Stories 1932–1937 (Library of America, 1994) DeMott, Robert and Steinbeck, Elaine A., eds.
NY: Twayne, 1994 . Hughes, R.
John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath and Other Writings 1936–1941 (Library of America, 1996) DeMott, Robert, ed.
Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 1998 . Benson, Jackson J.
Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2000 . Heavilin, Barbara A.
John Steinbeck, Novels 1942–1952 (Library of America, 2002) DeMott, Robert and Railsback, Brian, eds.
Reno: U of Nevada P, 2002 . Ditsky, John.
Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2002 . Li, Luchen.
In 2003, a school board in Mississippi banned it on the grounds of profanity.
His third wife, Elaine, was buried in the plot in 2004.
According to the American Library Association Steinbeck was one of the ten most frequently banned authors from 1990 to 2004, with Of Mice and Men ranking sixth out of 100 such books in the United States. ===Literary influences=== Steinbeck grew up in California's Salinas Valley, a culturally diverse place with a rich migratory and immigrant history.
Detroit: Gale, 2005 . Steinbeck, John Steinbeck IV and Nancy (2001).
John Steinbeck, Travels With Charley and Later Novels, 1947–1962 (Library of America, 2007) Benson, Jackson J.
In 1939, he signed a letter with some other writers in support of the Soviet invasion of Finland and the Soviet-established puppet government. Documents released by the Central Intelligence Agency in 2012 indicate that Steinbeck offered his services to the Agency in 1952, while planning a European tour, and the Director of Central Intelligence, Walter Bedell Smith, was eager to take him up on the offer.
Footage of this visit filmed by Rafael Aramyan was sold in 2013 by his granddaughter. In 1967, when he was sent to Vietnam to report on the war, his sympathetic portrayal of the United States Army led the New York Post to denounce him for betraying his liberal past.
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