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More About John Steinbeck...
John (Ernst) Steinbeck
1902-1968
American
Introduction
Major Works
Chronology
Introduction
John Steinbeck, the author of 26 volumes of fiction and nonfiction, as well as plays, film scripts, war dispatches, poetry, and voluminous correspondence, was one of the most prolific and popular American writers of the twentieth century. Steinbeck has the unusual distinction of being the only western American novelist to both win the Nobel Prize and have his work top the bestseller list. His controversial career reached its peak with his indisputable masterpiece, The Grapes of Wrath (1939). The novel won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award and also generated violent protest over its portrayal of California's ruthless agricultural economics, as well as its alleged "vulgar" language and socialist bias. A novel of documentary realism and social protest, Grapes highlights the author's humanist philosophy, his stylistic achievement, his use of mythic symbolism, and his moral vision.
Steinbeck spent much of his life and set much of his fiction in California's Salinas Valley and along the shores of Monterey Bay, an area now known as Steinbeck country. His love of the land and close attention to its inhabitants is an essential part of his life's work. Steinbeck's vision incorporates images of the American Dream with warnings against the evils of materialism, greed, and dehumanization. His sympathy for the human condition (which some readers have criticized as overly sentimental) and his focus on the themes of dignity and compassion are essential to the work. Though his plots have seemed overly determined to some, they nonetheless focus on timeless themes such as the corruption and exploitation of the weak and poor by rich and powerful interests.
Steinbeck had a long and contested career. His books have been praised and voraciously purchased but also banned and burned (two of his works, Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath, are among the most frequently banned books of the 1990s). While he wrote strike novels and tales of dispossessed workers, which obviously reflected a concern with the plight of the poor, he also wrote pieces of government propaganda during World War II (lesser-known works such as The Moon Is Down, Bombs Away, and Once There Was a War) and later supported the war in Vietnam.
While Steinbeck has generally been revered by the public, he has often been neglected by the academy (especially when compared to contemporaries like Hemingway, Faulkner, or Fitzgerald). His reputation rests mostly on the naturalistic, protest novels of the 1930s, and many critics feel his work declined from that point. Nonetheless, all of his major works remain in print, he has been translated into dozens of languages, and he continues to inspire millions of readers, both in the general public and among aficionados.
Major Works
Steinbeck produced a large body of work -- some 17 novels -- and there continues to be much debate about what is most important. Although some academic attention has been given to his lesser-known works, his reputation still generally rests on the naturalistic novels of the 1930s. Major titles include:
- The Pastures of Heaven (1932)
- Tortilla Flat (1935)
- In Dubious Battle (1936)
- Of Mice and Men (1937)
- The Red Pony (1937)
- The Long Valley (1938)
- The Grapes of Wrath (1939)
- Cannery Row (1945)
- The Pearl (1947)
- East of Eden (1952)
- Sweet Thursday (1954)
- The Winter of Our Discontent (1961)
Chronology
1902
Born in Salinas, California, on February 27. He is the third of four children of John Ernst II (the manager of a flour mill) and Olive Hamilton Steinbeck (a former schoolteacher). He reads a great deal as a child, especially Mark Twain, Jack London, and one of his major influences, Thomas Malory's Arthurian legends.
1915-19
Attends Salinas High School. In 1918 Steinbeck develops pleural pneumonia and nearly dies.
1919-25
Attends classes at Stanford University, but leaves without completing a degree. He intersperses his studies with work as a salesclerk, farm laborer, ranch hand, and factory worker. In 1924 he studies creative writing with Edith Mirrielees, who becomes an important influence on his work.
1925
Moves to Brooklyn, New York, working as a construction laborer and as a reporter for the New York American.
1926-28
Lives in Lake Tahoe, California, working as a caretaker for a summer home while completing his first novel, Cup of Gold, which is published in 1929.
1930
Marries Carol Henning. Meets Edward F. Ricketts, a marine biologist, philosopher, and longtime friend. Steinbeck later calls Ricketts "the greatest man I have known and the best teacher."
1932-33
Lives in Salinas, caring for his sick mother. Publishes the short story cycle The Pastures of Heaven (1932).
1934-35
Steinbeck's mother dies in 1934 and his father in 1935, which is also the year that his first commercially successful novel, Tortilla Flat, is published.
1936
Publishes In Dubious Battle, about striking workers. He is commissioned by the San Francisco News to write articles on migrant farmworkers. This begins research that will eventually be incorporated into The Grapes of Wrath.
1937
Publishes The Red Pony and Of Mice and Men. The latter becomes his first bestseller. Works with George Kaufman on a dramatic adaptation of Of Mice and Men, which opens on Broadway that year, and wins the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award in 1938.
1939
Publishes The Grapes of Wrath. The book receives critical and popular acclaim but also intense denunciation for its depiction of Oklahoma migrants and California growers. In the United States House of Representatives, Oklahoma congressman Lyle Boren calls the novel a "dirty, lying, filthy manuscript."
1940
Films of Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath are released. Receives the Pulitzer Prize for The Grapes of Wrath.
1941
Separates from Carol (they divorce in 1942) and moves to New York City with singer Gwyn Conger (they marry in 1943).
1942
Appointed special consultant to the Secretary of War and accepts an assignment from the Air Force to write a book about the training of bomber crews. Bombs Away is published that year.
1943
Writes a novella that becomes the basis for the Alfred Hitchcock film Lifeboat. Travels in Europe and North Africa as war correspondent for New York Herald Tribune.
1944
Birth of first son, Thom.
1946
Birth of second son, John IV.
1947
Tours Russia with photographer Robert Capa for the New York Herald Tribune. His account, A Russian Journal, is published in 1948.
1948
Gwyn tells Steinbeck she wants a divorce. He spends the summer in Mexico, researching for the screenplay Viva Zapata! (directed by Elia Kazan, the film is released in 1952). Steinbeck is elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
1950
Publishes Burning Bright, which also opens as a play on Broadway. Marries third wife, Elaine Anderson Scott.
1952
Publishes East of Eden. Travels extensively in Europe and North Africa, writing articles for Colliers.
1955
Film version of East of Eden, directed by Elia Kazan, opens.
1956
Meets Adlai Stevenson and contributes speeches to support his presidential campaign. Stevenson becomes a close friend. Begins work on an English version of Sir Thomas Malory's Morte d'Arthur. Steinbeck does much medieval reading and research for this project over the next few years, but it is never completed. A version, The Acts of King Arthur and His Nobel Knights, is published posthumously in 1976.
1960
Tours United States for 11 weeks with his poodle, Charley, in a pickup truck he names Rocinante. His account, Travels with Charley: In Search of America, is published in 1962.
1961
Publishes The Winter of Our Discontent.
1962
Awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. There is some debate among American critics at the time about whether or not "A Moral Vision of the Thirties Deserves the Nobel Prize" (as Arthur Mizener entitled his editorial in the New York Times).
1963
At the suggestion of President Kennedy, Steinbeck makes a two-month "cultural exchange" tour of Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, and Russia under the auspices of the United States Information Agency. On his return, he is invited to a private dinner with President Lyndon Johnson and begins establishing a friendship.
1964
Asked by Jacqueline Kennedy to write a book about John F. Kennedy, but declines the project. Becomes estranged from his sons, who return to live with their mother, Gwyn, and who bring suit with her for additional child support. Writes speeches for President Johnson. Awarded President Medal of Freedom.
1966
Writes to Johnson in support of his Vietnam policy. Makes a six-week tour of South Vietnam, reporting sympathetically on the American war effort.
1968
Suffers a minor stroke and two subsequent heart attacks. Dies at home of cardio-respiratory failure on December 20. A funeral service is held in New York, and his ashes are buried in the family plot in Garden of Memories Cemetery, Salinas.
Mark Silverberg is assistant professor of English at the University
College of Cape Breton. His essays on contemporary literature have
appeared in journals such as Arizona Quarterly, English Studies in
Canada, and Contemporary Literature.
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