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John Ernst Steinbeck (February 27 1902 –
December 20 1968) was one of the best-known and most widely
read American writers of the 20th century. A winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962, he wrote Of Mice and Men (1937) and the Pulitzer
Prize-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath
(1939), both of which examine the lives of the working class and migrant workers during the Dust Bowl and subsequent Great Depression.
Steinbeck often populated his stories with struggling characters, and his stories drew on real historical conditions and
events in the first half of the 20th century. His body of work reflects his wide range of interests, including marine biology, politics, religion,
history, and mythology.
Seventeen of his works, including Cannery Row (1945), The Pearl (1947), and East of Eden (1952), went on to
become Hollywood films (some appeared multiple times, i.e. as remakes), and
Steinbeck also achieved success as a Hollywood writer, receiving an Academy Award
nomination for Best Story in 1944 for Alfred Hitchcock's Lifeboat.
Biography
Early life and work
The house in Salinas, California where John Steinbeck lived until he was 17 years old.
John Ernst Steinbeck was born in Salinas, California, of German American and Irish American descent. Johann Adolf
Großteinbeck (i.e. Grossteinbeck), Steinbeck's grandfather, changed the family name from Grossteinbeck to Steinbeck when he
migrated to the United States. His father, John Steinbeck, Sr., served as the
Monterey County Treasurer while his
mother, Olive (Hamilton) Steinbeck, a former school teacher, fostered Steinbeck's love of
reading and writing. During summers he worked as a hired hand on nearby ranches.[1]
Steinbeck graduated from Salinas High School in 1919. He then attended Stanford
University intermittently until 1925. He then departed to New York City, without
graduating, to pursue his dream as a writer. However, he was unable to get any of his work published and returned to
California.[1]
Steinbeck's first published novel, Cup of Gold was published
in 1929. It is based on the privateer Henry Morgan's life and death. It centres on
Morgan's assault and sacking of the city of Panama, sometimes referred to as the 'Cup of Gold',
and the woman fairer than the sun reputed to be found there.[2]
After his first publication Steinbeck continued and wrote three further novels between 1931 and 1933. The Pastures of Heaven, published in 1932, consisted of twelve interconnected stories about a
valley in Monterey, California, which was discovered by a Spanish corporal while chasing runaway American Indian slaves. In 1933 Steinbeck published two
works; The Red Pony is a short 100-page, four-chapter story, which recollects
memories from Steinbeck's childhood.[2]
To a God Unknown follows the life of a homesteader and his family in California.
Steinbeck achieved his first critical success with the novel Tortilla Flat
(1935), which won California Commonwealth Club's Gold Medal.[2] The book portrays the adventures of a young group of men in Monterey who denounce society by enjoying life and
wine before U.S. prohibition in the 1920's. The
book, a story of the adventures of young men in Monterey after World War I was made into a film of the same name in 1942, starring Spencer
Tracy, Hedy Lamarr, and John Garfield.
Critical success
Steinbeck began to write a series of "California novels" and Dust Bowl fiction, set among
common people during the Great Depression. These included
In Dubious Battle in 1936, Of
Mice and Men in 1937, and The Grapes of Wrath in 1939.
Of Mice and Men (1937), his novella about the dreams of a pair of migrant laborers working the California soil, was critically
acclaimed.[2]
The stage adaptation of his novel Of Mice and Men was a smash hit, starring Broderick Crawford as the dim-witted but
physically powerful itinerant farmhand "Lennie" and Wallace Ford as Lennie's companion,
"George." However, Steinbeck refused to travel from his home in California to attend any performance of the play during its
New York run, telling Kaufman that the play as it existed in his own mind was "perfect",
and that anything presented on stage would only be a disappointment. Steinbeck would ultimately write only two stage plays (his
second was an adaptation of The Moon Is Down).
The play was rapidly adapted into a 1939 Hollywood film, in which
Lon Chaney, Jr. played "Lennie" (who had already portrayed this role in the Los Angeles
production of the play) and Burgess Meredith was cast as "George."[3] Steinbeck followed this wave of success with The Grapes of Wrath (1939), based on newspaper articles he had written in San Francisco, and
considered by many to be his finest work. The novel won the Pulitzer Prize in 1940 even
as it was made into a famous film version starring Henry Fonda and directed by
John Ford.
Bust of John Steinbeck in Monterey, California
The success of The Grapes of Wrath, however, was not free of controversy,
as Steinbeck's liberal political views, portrayal of the ugly side of capitalism, and
mythical reinterpretation of the historical events of the Dust Bowl migrations led to backlash
against the author, especially close to home.[4] In fact,
claiming the book was both obscene and misrepresented conditions in the county, the
Kern County Board of
Supervisors banned the book from the county's public schools and libraries in August 1939. This ban lasted
until January 1941.[5]
Of the controversy, Steinbeck himself wrote, "The vilification of me out here from the large
landowners and bankers is pretty bad. The latest is a rumor started by them that the Okies hate me
and have threatened to kill me for lying about them. I'm frightened at the rolling might of this damned thing. 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. Steinbeck spent a full day on the set of The Grapes of Wrath and the next day on the set of Of Mice and
Men.
1940s–1950s
Steinbeck divorced his first wife, Carol Henning, in 1943. He immediately married Gwyn Conger that same year, and had two
sons, Thomas Myles in 1944 and John Steinbeck IV (Catbird), in 1946. They divorced in
1948. Two years later, Steinbeck married Elaine Scott, the ex-wife of actor Zachary Scott.
They were married until his death in 1968.[2]
Ed Ricketts
In 1940, Steinbeck's interest in marine biology and his friendship with
Ed Ricketts led him to a historical voyage in the Gulf
of California, also known as the "Sea of Cortez," where they collected biological
specimens. Steinbeck's narrative portion of this collecting expedition (with some philosophical additions by Ricketts) was later
published as The Log from the Sea of Cortez, and describes the
daily experiences of the trip. The full catalog of the marine invertebrates taken was also published as a biological catalog of
the invertebrate life of the Gulf of California. While it remains a classic in nature
studies, it did not sell well, in part due to failure to find a popular audience.[6]
Ed Ricketts lab at 800
Cannery Row,
Monterey which was the basis for Docs marine Lab in the novel Cannery Row
Ed Ricketts had a tremendous impact on Steinbeck's writing. Not only did he help
Steinbeck while he was in the process of writing, but he aided Steinbeck in his social adventures. Steinbeck would frequently go
on trips with Ricketts to collect biological specimens and have a good time away from his writing.[6]
Ricketts' impact on Steinbeck was so great that Steinbeck decided to base his character "Doc" in the novels
Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday on
Ricketts. Steinbeck's close relationship with Ricketts would end when Steinbeck moved away from Salinas, California, to pursue a
life away from his wife Carol.[6]
Second World War
During the Second World War, Steinbeck served as a war correspondent for the New York Herald
Tribune. It was at that time he became friends with Will Lang Jr. of TIME/ LIFE
Magazine. During the war, Steinbeck saw action in accompanying some of the commando raids of Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.'s Beach Jumpers program, which
(among other things) launched small-unit diversion operations against German-held islands in the Mediterranean. As a war correspondent, Steinbeck would certainly have been executed if he had been
captured with the automatic weapon which he routinely carried on such missions, but all were successful. These missions would
help to earn Fairbanks a number of decorations, but as a civilian, Steinbeck's role in these doings went officially unrecognized.
Some of Steinbeck's writings from his correspondence days were later collected and made into Once There Was A War (1958).
During the war, he continued to work in film, writing Alfred Hitchcock's
Lifeboat (1944), and the film A Medal for
Benny (1945), about paisanos from Tortilla
Flat going to war. John Steinbeck later requested that his name be removed from the credits of Lifeboat, because he
believed the final version of the film had racist undertones.
His novel The Moon is Down (1942), about the Socrates-inspired spirit of resistance in a Nazi-occupied village in northern
Europe, was made into a film almost immediately. It is presumed that the country in question was Norway, and in 1945 Steinbeck received the Haakon VII Medal of
freedom for his literary contributions to the Norwegian resistance movement.
After the war
After the war, he wrote The Pearl (1947), already knowing it would be
filmed.[1], and traveled
to Mexico for the filming; on this trip he would be inspired by the story of Emiliano
Zapata, and wrote a film script (Viva Zapata!) that was directed by
Elia Kazan and starred Marlon Brando and
Anthony Quinn.
In 1948 Steinbeck again toured the Soviet Union, together with renowned photographer
Robert Capa. They visited Moscow, Kiev, Tbilisi, Batumi and the ruined
Stalingrad. He wrote a humorous report book about their experiences, A Russian Journal,
that was illustrated with Capa's photos. Avoiding political topics and reporting about the life of simple Soviet peasants and
workers Steinbeck tried to generate more understanding towards the Soviet people in a time when anti-Communism was widespread in
the US and the danger of war between the two countries was imminent. In the same year he was also elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
1950s–1960s
Following his divorce of Gwyndolyn Conger, and the sudden, tragic death of his close friend Ed Ricketts, Steinbeck wrote one
of his most popular novels, East of Eden (1952). This book, which he wrote to give
his sons some idea of their heritage, was the book he repeatedly wrote of as his best and his life's work.
In 1952, Steinbeck appeared as the on-screen narrator of 20th Century Fox's film,
O. Henry's Full House. 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. About the same time, Steinbeck recorded readings of several of his
short stories for Columbia Records; despite some obvious stiffness, the recordings
provide a vivid "record" of Steinbeck's deep, resonant voice.
Following the success of Viva Zapata!, Steinbeck collaborated with Kazan on the theatrical production of
East of Eden, James Dean's film debut.
Steinbeck did not care for Dean, he claimed that the actor was arrogant, but said that Dean was the perfect person to play Cal
Trask.
Steinbeck's next to last major work, Travels with Charley
(subtitle: In Search of America) is a travelogue of a coast-to-coast road trip he took across the United States in 1960, in a
camper truck, with his standard poodle Charley. In the work, Steinbeck misses his lost youth and lost roots, and both criticizes
and praises America on many levels.
Steinbeck's last novel, The Winter of Our Discontent, was written
in 1961. In many of his letters to friends, he spoke of how this book was his statement on the moral decay of the U.S. culture,
and it is quite different in tone to Steinbeck's amoral and ecological description of the innocent thievery of the protagonists
of his earlier works such as Tortilla Flat and Cannery
Row. Like many of Steinbeck's works, his last one was critically savaged; unlike his previous works, it also did not find
popularity with the masses.
Noble prize for literature
In 1962, Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize for Literature for his “realistic
and imaginative writing, combining as it does sympathetic humor and keen social perception.” Privately, he felt he did not
deserve the honor. In his acceptance speech, 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. In the endless war against weakness and despair, these are the bright
rally flags of hope and of emulation. I hold that a writer who does not believe in the perfectibility of man has no dedication
nor any membership in literature."
– Steinbeck Noble Prize Acceptance Speech
The gravesite of Steinbecks ashes in
Salinas Cemetery
In September of 1964, Steinbeck was awarded the United States Medal of
Freedom by President Lyndon Johnson.[7]
In 1967, at the behest of Newsday magazine, Steinbeck went to Vietnam to report on the war there. Thinking of the Vietnam War as a heroic
venture, he was considered a Hawk for his position on that war. His sons both served in Vietnam
prior to his death, and Steinbeck visited one son in the battlefield (at one point being allowed to man a machine-gun watch
position at night at a firebase, while his son and other members of his platoon slept). [8]
Death
On December 20, 1968 John Steinbeck died in
Manhattan, New York. His death is listed as heart
disease or heart attack.[9] An autopsy showed nearly complete occlusion of Steinbeck's main
coronary arteries.
In accordance with his wishes, his body was cremated and an urn containing his ashes were interred at his family gravesite.
The grave is located in plot# 2 at the Gardens of Memories gravesite in Salinas.
His ashes were placed with those of the Hamiltons (grandparents). His third wife, Elaine was buried with him in 2004.[6]
He had earlier written to his doctor that he felt deeply "in his bones" that he would not survive his physical death, and that
the biological end of his life was the final end to it.[6]
Legacy
The National Steinbeck Centre in Salinas, California
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.
But Good Lord, what a book that was and is: The Grapes of Wrath." 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." But he asserted that "Steinbeck didn't need the Nobel Prize—the Nobel judges needed him." Poore concluded:
"His place in [U.S.] literature is secure. And it lives on in the works of innumerable writers who learned from him how to
present the forgotten man unforgettably."
Many of Steinbeck's works are often included on required reading lists in American high
schools. His works are often read in other countries, in particular, in schools in Canada
and the United Kingdom. In the United Kingdom
Of Mice and Men is one of the key texts used by the examining body
AQA for its English Literature GCSE. A study by the Center for the Learning and Teaching of Literature in
the United States found that Of Mice and
Men was one of the ten most frequently read books in both public high and independent schools.[10]
Steinbecks works have aroused controversy. For example, at the time of its release
The Grapes of Wrath was banned
by several school boards, who believed his work to be obscene and misrepresentational. In one
case, Kern County Board of
Supervisors banned the book from the county's public schools and libraries in August 1939.[11] The Grapes of Wrath was also burned in Steinbecks home town of
Salinas on two occasions.[12] Controversy however, still surrounds some of his work today; Of Mice and Men as another example, was banned in 2003 by a school board in
Mississippi who considered the books use of profanity as a danger to its students.[13] The American
Library Association states that Steinbeck was one of the ten most challenged and banned authors from 1990 to 2004, with
Of Mice and Men the sixth highest challenged out of the 100 most frequently challenged books in the United States.[14][15]
California
The California area which includes Salinas and the Salinas Valley, Monterey, and parts of the nearby San Joaquin Valley,
acted as a setting for many of his stories. The area is now sometimes referred to as "Steinbeck Country".[6]
Steinbeck's boyhood home, a turreted Victorian building in downtown Salinas, has been preserved and restored by the Valley Guild, a nonprofit organization. Fixed menu lunches are served Monday through Saturday, and the house is
open for tours during the summer on Sunday
afternoons.[16]
The National Steinbeck Center, two blocks away at one main street is the only museum in the U.S. dedicated to a single author.
Dana Gioia (chair of the National Endowment for the Arts) told an
audience at the Center, "This is really the best modern literary shrine in the country, and I've seen them all." Its
Steinbeckiana includes Rocinante, the camper truck in which Steinbeck made the crosscountry trip described in "Travels with
Charley." A detailed breakdown of all of Steinbecks work are narrated through audio and visual materials including some original
manuscripts, first editions and personal
possessions.[17]
The cottage his father owned on Eleventh Street in Pacific Grove, where Steinbeck wrote some of his earliest books, has also
survived.[6]
In Monterey, "Doc" Ed Ricketts'
laboratory has survived (though is not yet open to the public) and at the corner which Steinbeck describes in Cannery Row, also the store which once belonged to Lee Chong, and the adjacent vacant lot frequented by the
hobos of Cannery Row. The sardine cannery next to Doc's lab has long stopped operation as a cannery, and is now the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which contains some historical treasures, including a selection of Doc's
library books. The town displays a series of civic links
to Steinbeck's work including an avenue of flags from famous
characters from Cannery Row, as well as a series of historical display signs.[6]
Honors
On August 20, 2007, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver
announced that John Steinbeck will be inducted into the California Hall of Fame
on December 5, 2007 at The California Museum for History, Women and the Arts in
Sacramento.[18]
Political views
Steinbeck's literary background brought him into close collaboration with leftist
authors, journalists, and labor union figures, who may have influenced his writing.
Steinbeck was mentored by radical writers Lincoln Steffens and his wife
Ella Winter, and through Francis Whitaker, a
member of the United States Communist Party’s
