John Steinbeck
{{For|other members of the family|Steinbeck (disambiguation)}}
| image = JohnSteinbeck.JPG| caption = Steinbeck (center), with his son,
visits President
Lyndon B. Johnson1902 | 27|mf=y}}| birthplace = Salinas Valley, California, United States | 1968 | 20 | 2 | mf=y}}| deathplace = New York, New York, United States| occupation = Novelist, Short story writer, War Correspondent| notableworks = | The Grapes of Wrath;
Of Mice and Men[{{citation| influences = Thomas Maloryweblink
]
|url=http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1962/press.html
|title=The Nobel Prize in Literature 1962: Presentation Speech by Anders Österling, Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy
|publisher=NobelPrize.org
|accessdate=2008-04-21
}}}}
John Steinbeck III (February 27, 1902—December 20, 1968) was one of the best-known and most widely read
American writers of the 20th century. He wrote the
Pulitzer Prize-winning
novel The Grapes of Wrath, published in 1939 and the
novella Of Mice and Men, published in 1937. In all, he wrote twenty-five books, including sixteen novels, six
non-fiction books and several collections of short stories. In 1962 Steinbeck received the
Nobel Prize for Literature.Steinbeck grew up in the
Salinas Valley region of
California, a culturally diverse place of rich migratory and immigrant history. This upbringing imparted a regionalistic flavor to his writing, giving many of his works a distinct sense of place.
(1)At the time of his childhood, Salinas was a small Californian
town. Though growing larger, more prosperous, and modern, it was still essentially a rough-and-tumble
frontier place, set amid some of the world's most fertile land.
(2)Steinbeck graduated from Salinas High School in 1919. He then attended
Stanford University intermittently until 1925, eventually leaving without a degree, as he disliked the university lifestyle. From Stanford, he traveled to
New York City and held various temporary jobs while pursuing his dream as a writer. However, he was unable to get any of his work published and returned to California
(3) where for a time he was resort handyman in
Lake Tahoe.
(4)In California he continued to write. His first novel,
(Cup of Gold: A Life of Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer, With Occasional Reference to History|Cup of Gold) was published in 1929. It is based on the privateer
Henry Morgan's life and death. It centers 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.
(5)missing image!
- SteinbeckCottage.jpg -
Steinbeck lived for many years in this cottage in Pacific Grove, California; he planted the pine tree in the front yard.
Steinbeck achieved his first critical success with the novel
Tortilla Flat (1935), which won the California Commonwealth Club's Gold Medal.
The book portrays the adventures of a young group of classless and usually homeless men in
Monterey, set in the era after World War I, just before U.S.
prohibition. These characters, who are portrayed in ironic comparison to mythologic knights on a quest, reject nearly all of the standard morals of American society in enjoyment of a dissolute life centering around wine, lust, comradery, and petty thievery. The book 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.
The stage adaptation of
Of Mice and Men was a hit, starring
Broderick Crawford as the mentally child-like 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 (the second an adaptation of
The Moon Is Down).
Of Mice and Men was rapidly adapted into a 1939
Hollywood film, in which
Lon Chaney, Jr. (who had portrayed the role in the Los Angeles production of the play) was cast as Lennie and
Burgess Meredith as "George."
[WEB
],
weblink, Of Mice and Men (1939)
, The Internet Movie Database
, 2007-10-10
Steinbeck followed this wave of success with
The Grapes of Wrath (1939), based on newspaper articles he had written in San Francisco. The novel would be considered by many to be his finest work. It won the
Pulitzer Prize in 1940, even as it was made into a notable film directed by
John Ford, starring
Henry Fonda as Tom Joad, who was nominated for an Academy Award for the part.
missing image!
- Steinbeck0103 148.jpg -
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.
(6) 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.
(7)Of the controversy, Steinbeck 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, 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.1940s—1950s
In 1943, after thirteen years of marriage, Steinbeck divorced his first wife, Carol Henning. He married Gwyn Conger that same year, a union which produced Steinbeck's only children,
Thomas ("Thom") Myles Steinbeck in 1944 and
John Steinbeck IV (Catbird), in 1946. They divorced in 1948. Two years later, Steinbeck married Elaine (Anderson) Scott, the ex-wife of actor
Zachary Scott. They would remain married until his death in 1968.
(8)missing image!
- EdRicketsLab.jpg -
Ed Ricketts lab at 800 Cannery Row, Monterey which was the basis for Doc's 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 frequently took small trips with Ricketts along the California coast, to collect the biological specimens which Ricketts sold for a living, and to give Steinbeck a vacation from his writing.
(9)missing image!
- TravelswithCharlieVehicle.jpg -
Rocinante, Steinbeck's camper truck which he used to travel across the United States in 1960
Steinbeck's last novel,
The Winter of Our Discontent, was written in 1961. The book examines
moral decline in America through a tragic story.
(10)Nobel 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:{{Quotation|
"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 Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech
(11)}}
missing image!
- JohnSteinbeckGraveSite.jpg -
The gravesite of Steinbeck's ashes in Salinas Cemetery
In September 1964, Steinbeck was awarded the
United States Medal of Freedom by President
Lyndon B. Johnson.
(12)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).
(13)Death
missing image!
- SteinbeckGrave.jpg -
John Steinbeck and family grave
On December 20, 1968 John Steinbeck died in
New York City. His death is listed as
heart disease or
heart attack. 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 was interred at his family gravesite at
Garden of Memories Memorial Park in Salinas. His ashes were placed with those of the Hamiltons (grandparents). His third wife, Elaine was buried with him in 2004.
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.
After Steinbeck's death, his incomplete novel based on the
King Arthur legends,
Acts of King Arthur and his Noble Knights was finally published, in 1976.
Legacy
missing image!
- NationalSteinbeckCentre.jpg -
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:
{{cquote|"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.
(14)Steinbeck's 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.
(15) The Grapes of Wrath was also burned in Steinbeck's home town of
Salinas on two occasions.
(16) 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 book's use of profanity as a danger to its students.
(17) 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.
(18)(19)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".
(20)
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.
(21)The cottage his father owned on Eleventh Street in Pacific Grove, where Steinbeck wrote some of his earliest books, has also survived.
(22) His son, author Thomas Steinbeck accepted the award on his behalf. In 1979, the
United States Postal Service issued a stamp featuring Steinbeck, starting the Postal Service’s Literary Arts series honoring American writers.
[WEB
],
weblink, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author Gets ‘Stamp of Approval’
, United States Postal Service
, 2008-02-21
, 2008-03-15
missing image!
- SteinbeckStamp.JPG -
John Steinbeck postage stamp.
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
John Reed Club for writers, Steinbeck met with strike organizers from the Cannery and Agricultural Workers' Industrial Union.
(23)Steinbeck complained publicly about government harassment. In a 1942 letter to United States Attorney General
Francis Biddle he wrote"Do you suppose you could ask
Edgar's boys to stop stepping on my heels? They think I am an enemy alien. It is getting tiresome".
(24) The FBI issued disingenuous denials that Steinbeck was not "under investigation". In fact, Steinbeck was indeed the object of intense FBI scrutiny. He was not under investigation, which is a technical term used by the FBI when it seeks to collect evidence in connection with a specific crime.Steinbeck was also screened for his political beliefs by
Army Intelligence during
World War II to determine his suitability for an officer's commission. It found him ideologically unqualified. In later years, he would be criticized from the left by those who accused him of insufficient ideological commitment to socialism. In 1948 a women's socialist group in
Rome condemned Steinbeck for converting to "the camp of war and anti-Sovietism". Then in a 1955 article in the
Daily Worker his portrayal of the American Left was criticised.
(25)In 1967, Steinbeck traveled to
Vietnam to report on the
war, and his sympathetic portrait of the
United States Army caused the
New York Post to denounce him for betraying his
liberal past. Steinbeck's biographer, Jay Parini, has suggested that Steinbeck's affection for
Lyndon B. Johnson, whom he considered a friend, influenced his view of the situation in Vietnam.
(26)
Steinbeck was a close associate of playwright
Arthur Miller, author of
Death of a Salesman and
The Crucible. In June 1959, Steinbeck took a personal and professional risk by standing up for his companion, who was held in contempt of the
United States Congress for refusing to name names in the
House Un-American Activities Committee trials.
(27)Major Works
Of Mice and Men
Of Mice and Men is a tragedy that was written in the form of a play in 1937. The story is about two traveling ranch workers, George and Lennie, trying to work up enough money to buy their own farm/ranch. It encompasses themes of racism, loneliness, prejudice against the mentally ill, and the struggle for personal independence. Along with
Grapes of Wrath,
East of Eden, and
The Pearl,
Of Mice and Men is one of Steinbeck's best known works. 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 was written in 1939 and won the
Pulitzer Prize in 1940. The book 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. The title is a reference to the
Battle Hymn of the Republic. The book was made into a film in 1940 starring
Henry Fonda and directed by
John Ford.
East of Eden
Steinbeck deals with the nature of good and evil in this Salinas Valley saga. The story follows two families: the Hamiltons - based on Steinbeck's own maternal ancestry - and the Trasks, reprising stories about the Biblical Adam and his progeny. The book was published in 1952.
Travels With Charley
In 1960, Steinbeck bought a pickup truck and had it modified with a custom-built camper top - rare for that day - and drove across the United States with his faithful poodle, Charley. In this sometimes comical, sometimes melancholic book, Steinbeck describes what he sees from
Maine to
Montana to
California, and from there to
Texas and
Louisiana and back to his home in
Long Island. The restored camper truck is on exhibit in the
National Steinbeck Center in
Salinas,
California.
Film credits
- 1939—Of Mice and Men—directed by Lewis Milestone, featuring Burgess Meredith, Lon Chaney, Jr., and Betty Field
- 1940—The Grapes of Wrath—directed by John Ford, featuring Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell and John Carradine
- 1941—The Forgotten Village—directed by Herbert Kline, narrated by Burgess Meredith
- 1942—Tortilla Flat—directed by Victor Fleming, featuring Spencer Tracy, Hedy Lamarr and John Garfield
- 1943—The Moon is Down—directed by Irving Pichel, featuring Lee J. Cobb and Sir Cedric Hardwicke
- 1944—Lifeboat—directed by Alfred Hitchcock, featuring Tallulah Bankhead, Hume Cronyn, and John Hodiak
- 1944—A Medal for Benny—directed by Irving Pichel, featuring Dorothy Lamour and Arturo de Cordova
- 1947—La Perla (The Pearl, Mexico)—directed by Emilio Fernández, featuring Pedro Armendáriz and María Elena Marqués
- 1949—The Red Pony—directed by Lewis Milestone, featuring Myrna Loy, Robert Mitchum, and Louis Calhern
- 1952—Viva Zapata!—directed by Elia Kazan, featuring Marlon Brando, Anthony Quinn and Jean Peters
- 1955—East of Eden—directed by Elia Kazan, featuring James Dean, Julie Harris, Jo Van Fleet, and Raymond Massey
- 1956—The Wayward Bus—directed by Victor Vicas, featuring Rick Jason, Jayne Mansfield, and Joan Collins
- 1961—Flight—featuring Efrain Ramírez and Arnelia Cortez
- 1962—Ikimize bir dünya (Of Mice and Men, Turkey)
- 1972—Topoli (Of Mice and Men, Iran)
- 1982—Cannery Row—directed by David S. Ward, featuring Nick Nolte and Debra Winger
- 1992—Of Mice and Men—directed by Gary Sinise and starring John Malkovich
Partial Bibliography
Posthumous publishings include:
Further reading
- DeMott, Robert and Steinbeck, Elaine A., eds. John Steinbeck, Novels and Stories 1932-1937 (Library of America, 1994) ISBN 978-1-88301101-7
- DeMott, Robert and Steinbeck, Elaine A., eds. John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath and Other Writings 1936-1941 (Library of America, 1996) ISBN 978-1-88301115-4
- DeMott, Robert, ed. John Steinbeck, Novels 1942-1952 (Library of America, 2002) ISBN 978-1-93108207-5
- DeMott, Robert and Railsback, Brian, eds. John Steinbeck, Travels With Charlie and later novels, 1947-1962 (Library of America, 2007) ISBN 978-1-59853-004-9
- Benson, Jackson J., ed. The Short Novels Of John Steinbeck: Critical Essays with a Checklist to Steinbeck Criticism. Durham: Duke UP, 1990. PS3537 .T3234 Z8666
- Davis, Robert C. The Grapes of Wrath: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1982. PS3537 .T3234 G734
- French, Warren. John Steinbeck's Fiction Revisited. NY: Twayne, 1994.
- Hughes, R. S. John Steinbeck: A Study of the Short Fiction. R.S. Hughes. Boston : Twayne, 1989. PS3537 .T3234 Z7147
- Meyer, Michael J. The Hayashi Steinbeck Bibliography, 1982-1996. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 1998.
- Benson, Jackson J. Looking for Steinbeck's Ghost. Reno: U of Nevada P, 2002.
- Ditsky, John. John Steinbeck and the Critics. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2000.
- Heavilin, Barbara A. John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath: A Reference Guide. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2002.
- Li, Luchen. ed. John Steinbeck: A Documentary Volume. Detroit: Gale, 2005.
- Parini, Jay,. John Steinbeck: A Biography, , Holt Publishing, 1996
References
-
Biography
Early life and work
missing image!
- SteinbeckHouse.jpg -
The house in Salinas, California where John Steinbeck lived until he was 17 years old.
John Ernst Steinbeck was born on February 27, 1902, in Salinas, California. He was 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.[National Steinbeck Centre, Biography Page, 2007]
-
[Introduction to John Steinbeck, The Long Valley, pages 9 - 10, John Timmerman, Penguin Publishing, 1995]
-
[weblink National Steinbeck Centre, Biography Page, 2007]
-
[Introduction to 'The Grapes of Wrath' Penguin edition (1192) by Rober DeMott]
-
[Jackson J. Benson, John Steinbeck, writer (New York: The Viking Press, 1984), pgs. 147, 651)]
-
[Steibeck backlash of his portrayal of the depression, New Criterion, Accessed 2007]
-
[Steinbecks works Banned, Accessed 2007]
-
Ed Ricketts
In 1940, Steinbeck's interest in marine biology and his friendship with Ed Ricketts led him to a voyage around the Gulf of California, also known as the "Sea of Cortez," where they collected biological specimens. Steinbeck's narrative portion of the total expedition report (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 narrative-log plus the full catalog of the marine invertebrates taken, had earlier been published as a naturalist's narrative and biological catalog of the invertebrate life of the Gulf of California. While it remains a classic of an earlier tradition in biological reporting, in 1942 it did not sell well, in part due to failure to find a popular audience.[{{citation|title=A Journey into Steinbeck's California|author=Susan Shillinglaw|publisher=Roaring Forties Press|date=2006}}]
-
World War II
During World War II, 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 collected and made into the novelistic documentary 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 was presumed that the unnamed country of the novel 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. The story first appeared in the December 1945 issue of Woman's Home Companion magazine as "The Pearl of the World." It was illustrated by John Alan Maxwell. The novel is an imaginative telling of a story which Steinbeck had heard in La Paz, 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".{{Fact|date=December 2007}} Steinbeck traveled to Mexico for the filming; 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 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, which 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 toward people living in the Soviet Union, in a time when anti-Communism was widespread in the U.S. 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 from Gwyndolyn Conger and the sudden, tragic death of his close friend Ed Ricketts (who perished as a result of his car being hit by a train), 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 literal 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'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. According to Thom Steinbeck, the author's older son, the real reason for the trip was that Steinbeck knew he was dying and wanted to see his country one last time. Thom says he was surprised that his stepmother (Steinbeck's wife) allowed Steinbeck to make the trip, since Steinbeck's heart disease put him at risk of dying without warning at any time.["Steinbeck knew he was dying," September 13, 2006. Audio interview with Thom Steinbeck]
-
[The students companion to John Steinbeck, page 24, Cynthia Burkhead, Greenwood Press, 2002]
-
[Steinbeck Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech]
-
[John Steinbeck, Recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Medal of Freedom Recipients, Accessed 2007]
-
[ See Steinbeck, A Life in Letters.]
-
[Books taught in Schools, Center for the Learning and Teaching of Literature. Accessed 2007]
-
[Steinbeck Book Ban, Accessed 2007]
-
[The Grapes of Wrath Burnt in Salinas, National Steinbeck Centre, Accessed 2007]
-
[Steinbecks work banned in Mississippi 2003, American Library Association, Accessed 2007]
-
[Steinbeck 10 most most banned list, American Library Association, Accessed 2007]
-
[100 Most Frequently banned books in the U.S., American Library Association, Accessed 2007]
-
[John Steinbeck's Home and Birthplace, Information Point, Accessed 2007]
-
[The National Steinbeck Centre, Accessed 2007]
-
Honors
missing image!
- TheFreeExploringMindOfTheIndividualHumanIsTheMostValuableThingInTheWorldByJohnSteinbeckInJackKerouacAlley.jpg -
Steinbeck's poem plaque at San Francisco's Jack Kerouac Alley.
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.[Steinbeck inducted into California Hall of Fame, California Museum, Accessed 2007]
-
[Steinbeck and radicalism New Criterion, Accessed 2007]
-
[Steinbeck Political Beliefs, Smoking Gun Part 1, Accessed 2007]
-
[Steinbeck Political Beliefs, Smoking Gun Part 2, Accessed 2007]
-
[John Steinbeck: A Biography, Jay Parini, Holt Publishing, 1996]
-
[John Steinbeck, Writer: A Biography, Jackson J. Benson , Penguin, 1990]
External links
{{wikisource author}}
Educational resources
Primary Sources
Life related
{{Steinbeck}}{{Nobel Prize in Literature Laureates 1951-1975}}
{{Persondata|NAME= Steinbeck, John Ernst|ALTERNATIVE NAMES=American literature>American writer, Nobel Prize for Literature laureate in 1962 | 1902 | 27|mf=y}}|PLACE OF BIRTH= Salinas Valley, California, United States | 1968 | 20|mf=y}}|PLACE OF DEATH= New York}}جون شتاينبكCon Steynbekজন স্টাইন্বেক্John SteinbeckJohn SteinbeckJohn SteinbeckJohn SteinbeckJohn SteinbeckJohn SteinbeckΤζον ΣτάινμπεκJohn SteinbeckJohn SteinbeckJohn Steinbeckجان اشتاینبکJohn SteinbeckJohn Steinbeckजाह्न स्टैनबेकJohn SteinbeckJohn Ernst SteinbeckJohn SteinbeckJohn Steinbeckג'ון סטיינבקჯონ სტაინბეკიJohn SteinbeckIoannes SteinbeckJohn SteinbeckJohn Steinbeckജോണ് സ്റ്റെയിന്ബെക്ക്जॉन स्टाइनबेक तिसराJohn Steinbeckジョン・スタインベックJohn SteinbeckJohn SteinbeckJohn SteinbeckJohn SteinbeckJohn SteinbeckСтейнбек, ДжонJohn SteinbeckJohn SteinbeckJohn SteinbeckЏон СтајнбекJohn SteinbeckJohn SteinbeckJohn SteinbeckJohn SteinbeckҶон СтейнбекJohn SteinbeckСтейнбек Джон約翰·史坦貝克 |
(...as imported from WP)
article has not been saved locally
