His father was County Treasurer and his mother, a former schoolteacher. In the Nobel Prize presentation speech next year, however, the Swedish Academy cited it most favorably: "Here he attained the same standard which he set in The Grapes of Wrath. John Steinbeck was born in the front bedroom in 1902, and he grew up there with his family. John Steinbeck's House (former) (Google Maps). Among novelist John Steinbeck's literary influences were the parts of California where he grew up, the people he knew and memories from his personal life. [65], Steinbeck complained publicly about government harassment. [37] "There aren't any obvious candidates for the Nobel prize and the prize committee is in an unenviable situation," wrote committee member Henry Olsson. Tue 19 Jul 2011 09.15 EDT … [40], In 1967, at the behest of Newsday magazine, Steinbeck went to Vietnam to report on the war. Steinbeck grew up in California's Salinas Valley, a culturally diverse place with a rich migratory and immigrant history. His father, John Ernst Steinbeck, was not a terribly successful man; at one time or another he was the manager of a Sperry flour plant, the owner of a feed and grain store, and the treasurer of Monterey County. Click to see full answer Also, how did John Steinbeck's life affect his writing? He later requested that his name be removed from the credits of Lifeboat, because he believed the final version of the film had racist undertones. directed by Elia Kazan and starring Marlon Brando and Anthony Quinn. Aug 2, 1944. It was critically acclaimed[20] and Steinbeck's 1962 Nobel Prize citation called it a "little masterpiece". It won both the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize for fiction (novels) and was adapted as a film starring Henry Fonda and Jane Darwell and directed by John Ford. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. His works frequently explored the themes of fate and injustice, especially as applied to downtrodden or everyman protagonists. New York, New York. [43], John Steinbeck died in New York City on December 20, 1968, during the 1968 flu pandemic of heart disease and congestive heart failure. He was born in 1902 and lived until 1968. [20] To a God Unknown, named after a Vedic hymn,[15] follows the life of a homesteader and his family in California, depicting a character with a primal and pagan worship of the land he works. 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. 45", "John Steinbeck, The Art of Fiction No. Apparently taken aback by the critical reception of this novel, and the critical outcry when he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962,[37] Steinbeck published no more fiction in the remaining six years before his death. 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. Owning Institution: UC Berkeley, Bancroft Library "THE MOON IS DOWN by John Steinbeck on Sumner & Stillman", https://calisphere.org/item/ark:/13030/tf6q2nb5mz/, "ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive: Biography: Al Capp 2- A CAPPital Offense", "Remarks at the Presentation of the 1964 Presidential Medal of Freedom Awards. He is widely known for the comic novels Tortilla Flat (1935) and Cannery Row (1945), the multi-generation epic East of Eden (1952), and the novellas The Red Pony (1933) and Of Mice and Men (1937). Steinbeck's father settled in California shortly after the American Civil War. In 1925, during the sixth and final year of John Steinbeck’s time as a Stanford student, the soon-to-be famous author moved off campus to a one-room shack behind a larger house in … JOHN STEINBECK I first heard of Positano from Alberto Moravia. Steinbeck Review, vol. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). Many of Steinbeck's works are required reading in American high schools. Steinbeck nicknamed his truck Rocinante after Don Quixote's "noble steed". Steinbeck, John Steinbeck IV and Nancy (2001). [10] The Steinbecks were members of the Episcopal Church,[11] although Steinbeck later became agnostic. "John Steinbeck, Writer" Penguin Putnam Inc., second edition, New York, 1990, 0-14-01.4417X, This page was last edited on 16 January 2021, at 02:21. [8] He was of German, English, and Irish descent. Its "Steinbeckiana" includes "Rocinante", the camper-truck in which Steinbeck made the cross-country trip described in Travels with Charley. The National Steinbeck Center, two blocks away at 1 Main Street is the only museum in the U.S. dedicated to a single author. Born in Salinas, California and grew up in the fertile Salinas Valley, the " Salad Bowl of the Nation ," as it was later called. PLAY. [22] Meredith and Steinbeck became close friends for the next two decades. Although Steinbeck later admitted he was uncomfortable before the camera, he provided interesting introductions to several filmed adaptations of short stories by the legendary writer O. Henry. Pacific Grove, California—John Steinbeck’s retreat when there was writing or healing to be done—is a preservation-minded community where “this old house” means the whole town, and residents like Nancy and Steve Hauk, celebrity-citizens with ties to Steinbeck, contribute to the present while connecting with the past. Summer: Steinbeck works at the Post Ranch and tracks the Big Sur Bear. His father's cottage on Eleventh Street in Pacific Grove, where Steinbeck wrote some of his earliest books, also survives. For other people with this surname, see, Introduction to 'The Grapes of Wrath' Penguin edition (1192) by Robert DeMott. [15] Carol became the model for Mary Talbot in Steinbeck's novel Cannery Row.[15]. Ricketts became a proponent of ecological thinking, in which man was only one part of a great chain of being, caught in a web of life too large for him to control or understand. A brush house. In 1834, in the year that John Steinbeck was born, on March 28th, President Andrew Jackson was censured by the United States Congress, 26–20, due to his efforts to close The Second Bank of the United States - which eventually led to the Panic of 1837. Question: Did John Steinbeck marry and have children? When he failed to publish his work, he returned to California and worked in 1928 as a tour guide and caretaker[15] at Lake Tahoe, where he met Carol Henning, his first wife. The writer purchased this house in 1955 and owned it until his death in 1968. Steinbeck and Mexico: John Steinbeck is recognized as one of the key American authors of the 20th century. Along with The Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden, and The Pearl, Of Mice and Men is one of Steinbeck's best known works. These included In Dubious Battle, Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath. In that month, it won the National Book Award, favorite fiction book of 1939, voted by members of the American Booksellers Association. The Grapes of Wrath, the best-known novel by John Steinbeck, published in 1939. He was 66, and had been a lifelong smoker. Answer: He was married to Carol Henning between 1930 and 1942. answer. Upon returning home, Steinbeck was confronted by Gwyn, who asked for a divorce, which became final in August. After the war, he wrote The Pearl (1947), knowing it would be filmed eventually. There he learned of the harsher aspects of the migrant life and the darker side of human nature, which supplied him with material expressed in Of Mice and Men. He was named after … Steinbeck was born on February 27, 1902, in Salinas, California. He spent much of his life in Monterey county, California, which later was the setting of some of his fiction. In doing research for Steinbeck Citizen Spy, it became quickly apparent that comparing Steinbeck’s travels and associations with government documentation might help me decipher Steinbeck’s dual life.I did not know what tidbits would be pertinent as I came across events in John’s life, so I compiled as detailed a timeline as possible. Nearly thirty Academy Award nominations and four Academy Awards were given for adaptations of John Steinbeck stories. Their correspondence continued until Steinbeck's death. Project MUSE, muse.jhu.edu/article/530751. In 1948, the year the book was published, Steinbeck was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. [46] Steinbeck called the period one of the "strangest and most frightening times a government and people have ever faced. [15] In 1942, after his divorce from Carol he married Gwyndolyn "Gwyn" Conger. The story is about two traveling ranch workers, George and Lennie, trying to earn enough money to buy their own farm/ranch. Steinbeck's New Deal political views, negative portrayal of aspects of capitalism, and sympathy for the plight of workers, led to a backlash against the author, especially close to home. [20], 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. John Steinbeck's relationship to the Salinas Valley is that it was his childhood home and he lived there until he went to Stanford University in 1919. Who was John Steinbeck? Salinas, Monterey and parts of the San Joaquin Valley were the setting for many of his stories. [61] In 1939, he signed a letter with some other writers in support of the Soviet invasion of Finland and the Soviet-established puppet government.[62]. Test your mental wingspan by sorting through the names and novels in this quiz. Many reviewers recognized the importance of the novel, but were disappointed that it was not another Grapes of Wrath. Steinbeck's boyhood home, a turreted Victorian building in downtown Salinas, has been preserved and restored by the Valley Guild, a nonprofit organization. Of Mice and Men was a drama about the dreams of two migrant agricultural laborers in California. [28] Most of his early work dealt with subjects familiar to him from his formative years. [21] With some of the proceeds, he built a summer ranch-home in Los Gatos. The Grapes of Wrath won a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award and was made into a notable film in 1940. The California author John Steinbeck won both the Pulitzer and Nobel Peace Prize during his illustrious career. Charley was the great American author John Steinbeck's French Poodle, born and raised in a Paris suburb, who knew "a little poodle-english," but who responded "only to commands in French." He explored his surroundings, walking across local forests, fields, and farms. ... [W]e think it interesting that the laurel was not awarded to a writer ... whose significance, influence and sheer body of work had already made a more profound impression on the literature of our age". The family farm in Heiligenhaus, Mettmann, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, is still named "Großsteinbeck." [28], The day after Steinbeck's death in New York City, reviewer Charles Poore wrote in The New York Times: "John Steinbeck's first great book was his last great book. In the six years that he was enrolled at the University, starting in 1919, he only accumulated 93 units — becoming equivalent in status to a junior. question. [29], 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. The structures on the parcel were demolished and park benches installed near the beach. The life of Steinbeck has been chronicled by men—notably Jackson Benson, the author of The True Adventures of John Steinbeck, Writer—with an emotional detachment from their distant, difficult subject. Steinbeck was a close associate of playwright Arthur Miller. His immediate postwar work—Cannery Row (1945), The Pearl (1947), and The Wayward Bus (1947)—contained the familiar elements of his social criticism but were more relaxed in approach and sentimental in tone. John Steinbeck, in full John Ernst Steinbeck, (born February 27, 1902, Salinas, California, U.S.—died December 20, 1968, New York, New York), American novelist, best known for The Grapes of Wrath (1939), which summed up the bitterness of the Great Depression decade and aroused widespread sympathy for the plight of migratory farmworkers. Steinbeck spent the year after Ricketts' death in deep depression. At age 16, Steinbeck contracted pleural pneumonia and came close to … \ John Steinbeck Biography. [28] Ricketts' biographer Eric Enno Tamm notes that, except for East of Eden (1952), Steinbeck's writing declined after Ricketts' untimely death in 1948. Mentioned in Travels with Charley (1962) and The Log from the Sea of Cortez (1951). It is commonly considered his greatest work. [48] 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.[49][50]. Both valley and coast would serve as settings for some of his best fiction. John Steinbeck was a famous author, and Nobel Peace prize winner. 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". What did … He wrote Alfred Hitchcock's movie, Lifeboat (1944), and the film, A Medal for Benny (1945), with screenwriter Jack Wagner about paisanos from Tortilla Flat going to war. The New York Times asked why the Nobel committee gave the award to an author whose "limited talent is, in his best books, watered down by tenth-rate philosophising", noting that "[T]he international character of the award and the weight attached to it raise questions about the mechanics of selection and how close the Nobel committee is to the main currents of American writing. Carol and John Steinbeck: Portrait of a Marriage is a book only Susan Shillinglaw could have written. John graduated from Salinas High School in 1919 and attended classes at Stanford University, leaving in 1925 without a … It was very hot in Rome. 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. On December 5, 2007, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver inducted Steinbeck into the California Hall of Fame, located at the California Museum for History, Women and the Arts. Later he used actual American conditions and events in the first half of the 20th century, which he had experienced first-hand as a reporter. "[46], 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. John Steinbeck was born in the farming town of Salinas, California on February 27, 1902. Between 1930 and 1936, Steinbeck and Ricketts became close friends. The pattern started at high school in Salinas, the Californian town where he was born on 27 February 1902. What was his moms name and job. A website devoted to Sea of Cortez literature, with information on Steinbeck's expedition. Steinbeck deals with the nature of good and evil in this Salinas Valley saga. Source: Calisphere Born in Salinas, California and grew up in the fertile Salinas Valley, the " Salad Bowl of the Nation ," as it was later called. He thought of the Vietnam War as a heroic venture and was considered a hawk for his position on the war. To stay put and not wander off like a hobo again. 1979 US Postal Service issues a John Steinbeck Commemorative Stamp. 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. Ricketts had taken a college class from Warder Clyde Allee, a biologist and ecological theorist, who would go on to write a classic early textbook on ecology. [9] Johann Adolf Großsteinbeck (1828–1913), Steinbeck's paternal grandfather, shortened the family name to Steinbeck when he immigrated to the United States. [54] His son, author Thomas Steinbeck, accepted the award on his behalf. According to The New York Times, it was the best-selling book of 1939 and 430,000 copies had been printed by February 1940. [30] With his second wife Steinbeck had two sons, Thomas ("Thom") Myles Steinbeck (1944–2016) and John Steinbeck IV (1946–1991). East of Eden, an ambitious epic about the moral relations between a California farmer and his two sons, was made into a film in 1955. The elder Steinbecks gave John free housing, paper for his manuscripts, and from 1928, loans that allowed him to write without looking for work. Steinbeck was married to his second wife, Gwyndolyn Conger, between 1943 and 1948, during which time he had two sons, Thomas (born 1944) and John (born 1946). The shaping of his characters often drew on the Bible and the theology of Anglicanism, combining elements of Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. [66] Thomas Steinbeck, the author's eldest son, said that J. Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI at the time, could find no basis for prosecuting Steinbeck and therefore used his power to encourage the U.S. Internal Revenue Service to audit Steinbeck's taxes every single year of his life, just to annoy him. He joined the League of American Writers, a Communist organization, in 1935. The book evokes the harshness of the Great Depression and arouses sympathy for the struggles of migrant farmworkers beset by adversity and vast impersonal commercial influences. ... What kind of house did Kino and Juana live in? February 27, 1902. John's mother, Olive Hamilton (1867–1934), a former school teacher, shared Steinbeck's passion for reading and writing. [10][15][16] They married in January 1930 in Los Angeles, where, with friends, he attempted to make money by manufacturing plaster mannequins. [4], During his writing career, he authored 33 books, with one book coauthored alongside Edward Ricketts, including 16 novels, six non-fiction books, and two collections of short stories. Before his books attained success, he spent considerable time supporting himself as a manual labourer while writing, and his experiences lent authenticity to his depictions of the lives of the workers in his stories. Steinbeck's incomplete novel based on the King Arthur legends of Malory and others, The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights, was published in 1976. 1984 American Arts Gold Medallion of Steinbeck issued by the US Mint. During World War II Steinbeck wrote some effective pieces of government propaganda, among them The Moon Is Down (1942), a novel of Norwegians under the Nazis, and he also served as a war correspondent. Steinbeck’s career, marked by uneven achievements, began with a historical novel. The Family's Canoe. He traveled to New York City where he took odd jobs while trying to write. John Steinbeck Questions. The young boy was raised as an Episcopal Christian, but he later became a sceptic. Regarded as “a giant of American letters,” John Ernst Steinbeck, Jr. was a Pulitzer Prize winner as well as a recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature.His critically-acclaimed novel, The Grapes of Wrath, on the plight of migrant workers during the Great Depression, is still considered as Steinbeck’s masterpiece and one of the greatest pieces of Western literature. In the endless war against weakness and despair, these are the bright rally flags of hope and of emulation. [17] They formed a common bond based on their love of music and art, and John learned biology and Ricketts' ecological philosophy. DeMott, Robert and Steinbeck, Elaine A., eds. 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. "[15][37] In his acceptance speech later in the year in Stockholm, he said: the writer is delegated to declare and to celebrate man's proven capacity for greatness of heart and spirit—for gallantry in defeat, for courage, compassion and love. He had spent a year there working on a book. He is widely known for the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden and the novella Of Mice and Men. 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. [15] Steinbeck helped on an informal basis. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature for 1962. Print version of this article (pdf - 82kb) Steinbeck in 1909 with his sister Mary, sitting on the red pony, Jill, at the Salinas Fairgrounds. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature for 1962. Salinas, California. 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. J ohn Steinbeck was born in 1903 in Salinas, California, the setting for his popular novel Of Mice and Men.. Outstanding among the scripts he wrote directly for motion pictures were Forgotten Village (1941) and Viva Zapata! John Steinbeck and Gwyn, his second wife, lived there only a short time, however, and sold the house a year later. The story first appeared in the December 1945 issue of Woman's Home Companion magazine as "The Pearl of the World." [55][56][57], Steinbeck and his friend Ed Ricketts appear as fictionalized characters in the 2016 novel, Monterey Bay about the founding of the Monterey Bay Aquarium, by Lindsay Hatton (Penguin Press).[58]. "[15][37] Biographer Jackson Benson notes, "[T]his honor was one of the few in the world that one could not buy nor gain by political maneuver. Poore noted a "preachiness" in Steinbeck's work, "as if half his literary inheritance came from the best of Mark Twain—and the other half from the worst of Cotton Mather." 2, 2013, pp. Benson, Jackson J. But he asserted that "Steinbeck didn't need the Nobel Prize—the Nobel judges needed him.". Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. ", His father, John Ernst Steinbeck (1862–1935), served as Monterey County treasurer. 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). John Steinbeck Biography. What time and place did John Steinbeck live in? It is getting tiresome. John Ernst Steinbeck Jr. (/ˈstaɪnbɛk/; February 27, 1902 – December 20, 1968) was an American author and the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature winner "for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humour and keen social perception. [20] Steinbeck may also have been concerned about the safety of his son serving in Vietnam. John Steinbeck had a habit of signing letters and books with a tiny drawing of a winged pig, accompanied by the Latin phrase ad astra per alia porci—to the stars on the wings of a pig.The character, which he named "Pigasus," was meant as a reminder that man should always strive for higher ground, no matter how lowly his skills may seem. He was born in 1902 and lived until 1968. 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. Ricketts died hours before Steinbeck arrived. John Steinbeck was born in the farming town of Salinas, California on 27 February 1902. 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. Olive Hamilton Steinbeck; teacher. John Steinbeck was the third of four children and the only son born to John Ernst and Olive Hamilton Steinbeck. In June 1949, Steinbeck met stage-manager Elaine Scott at a restaurant in Carmel, California. John Steinbeck was born in 1902 and died in 1968. 1915–19. He said, “Why don’t you go down to Positano on the Amalfi Coast? Steinbeck’s first novel, Cup of Gold (1929), was followed by The Pastures of Heaven (1932) and To a God Unknown (1933), none of which were successful. However, the work he produced still reflected the language of his childhood at Salinas, and his beliefs remained a powerful influence within his fiction and non-fiction work. In the fall of 1960 an ailing, out-of-sorts John Steinbeck, pretty much depleted as a novelist, decided that his problem was he had lost touch with America. Travels with Charley: In Search of America is a travelogue of his 1960 road trip with his poodle Charley. Learn how and when to remove this template message, Travels with Charley: In Search of America, The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights, the California Museum for History, Women and the Arts, Cannery and Agricultural Workers' Industrial Union, Sea of Cortez: A Leisurely Journal of Travel and Research, The Short Reign of Pippin IV: A Fabrication, Journal of a Novel: The East of Eden Letters, Working Days: The Journals of The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck in Vietnam: Dispatches from the War, "The Nobel Prize in Literature 1962: Presentation Speech by Anders Österling, Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy", "Swedish Academy reopens controversy surrounding Steinbeck's Nobel prize", "Who, what, why: Why do children study Of Mice and Men? Meeting John Steinbeck in Somerset It's a very pleasant surprise to encounter a great American author in Bruton Lindesay Irvine. Steinbeck's biographer, Jay Parini, says Steinbeck's friendship with President Lyndon B. Johnson[64] influenced his views on Vietnam. This third marriage for Steinbeck lasted until his death in 1968. He was born in Salinas, California to German and Irish parents. I hold that a writer who does not believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication nor any membership in literature. The selection was heavily criticized, and described as "one of the Academy's biggest mistakes" in one Swedish newspaper. His father was a treasurer for the government of Monterey County. Question: Did John Steinbeck marry and have children? He lived in Salinas, … Ecological themes recur in Steinbeck's novels of the period. Steinbeck and his first wife, Carol Henning, married in January 1930 in Los Angeles. He was of German, English, and Irish descent. [28], On February 27, 1979 (the 77th anniversary of the writer's birth), the United States Postal Service issued a stamp featuring Steinbeck, starting the Postal Service's Literary Arts series honoring American writers. [15], 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. This upbringing imparted a regionalistic flavor to his writing, giving many of his works a distinct sense of place. [15], 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. Some of his writings from this period were incorporated in the documentary Once There Was a War (1958). 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.[41]. What did Kino use to go pearl hunting? The doctor disliked Kino's race and this had been going on for ages. [26] It was burned in Salinas on two different occasions. [20], Between 1930 and 1933, Steinbeck produced three shorter works. In 2019 the Sag Harbor town board approved the creation of the John Steinbeck Waterfront Park across from the iconic town windmill. William Ray considered his Episcopal views are prominently displayed in The Grapes of Wrath, in which themes of conversion and self-sacrifice play a major part in the characters Casy and Tom who achieve spiritual transcendence through conversion. [12] Steinbeck lived in a small rural valley (no more than a frontier settlement) set in some of the world's most fertile soil, about twenty-five miles from the Pacific Coast. He was the third of four children and the only son of John Ernst II and Olive Hamilton Steinbeck. He first achieved popularity with Tortilla Flat (1935), an affectionately told story of Mexican Americans. Steinbeck and Scott eventually began a relationship and in December 1950 Steinbeck and Scott married, within a week of the finalizing of Scott's own divorce from actor Zachary Scott. The Beebe windmill replica already had a plaque memorializing the author whom wrote from a small hut overlooking the cove during his sojourn in the literary haven. Steinbeck began to write a series of "California novels" and Dust Bowl fiction, set among common people during the Great Depression.