John Steinbeck – A&E Biography Notes
16. Steinbeck wrote a screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock’s Lifeboat.
Family Life
1. Steinbeck was born in Salinas, California.
17. In 1943, Steinbeck went to war as a correspondent for the Herald Tribune.
2. His mother was a teacher/socialite, and his father, John Ernst Steinbeck, was
the treasurer of Monterey County in California.
Education
3. In his freshman year, Steinbeck told his parents that he wanted to be a writer.
4. In 1919, Steinbeck enrolled at Stanford University, where he attended off and
on for six years. He only took classes that would
Life as a Writer
5. Steinbeck got many stories from Latinos and roustabouts.
6. In 1925, Steinbeck moved to New York City to be a reporter, but he was fired
from his first reporting job because he was too close to the people he wrote
about.
7. First novel - Cup of Gold (forgettable novel)
8. In Monterey, Steinbeck met Ed Ricketts, a marine biologist who would
become the most important man in his life.
9. Second novel – Pastures of Heaven - published in 1932 and sold fewer than
1,000 copies.
10. A shy man, Steinbeck did not deal well with success: he built a remote home
and became sick at seeing his picture in the newspaper.
11. Ed Ricketts inspired Steinbeck’s philosophy; his politics were inspired by
Carol.
12. Steinbeck’s novel Of Mice and Men, was a response to violent cotton and
lettuce strikes in California in the mid-1930’s.
13. Of Mice and Men is a simple story of two migrant workers, which was adapted
successfully to both stage and screen.
14. In 1936, Steinbeck wrote The Grapes of Wrath after the San Francisco News
commissioned him to do a series on migrant labor.

Steinbeck wrote the book in only 100 days.
 Farm owners dismissed the book as Communist propaganda.
 Eleanor Roosevelt and other “New Dealers” praised the book
 The book won the Pulitzer Prize.
 In Salinas, the book was burned in front of the library because people
were angry that Steinbeck portrayed farm owners in a bad light.
15. Steinbeck and Ed Ricketts went to the Sea of Cortez in 1940, and Steinbeck
turned his notes into a book.
18. In the novel Cannery Row, written in 1945, Steinbeck tried to re-create the
times he had with Ed Ricketts in Monterey.
19. Ed Ricketts was killed when his car was struck by a train in 1948;
Steinbeck said he had been the “greatest man in the world.”
20. The novel East of Eden, published in 1955, was a retelling of family history
and an emotional venting of his recent past.
21. John and Elaine moved to Long Island, so he could fall in love with the
Atlantic Ocean.
22. In 1962, Travels with Charley, a book about Steinbeck’s trip around the
United States with a dog, was published.
23. Steinbeck suffered a stroke in 1962.
24. Winning the 1962 Nobel Prize brought out Steinbeck’s critics again, and he
took the criticism so seriously that he never wrote another word of
fiction.
25. Steinbeck wrote speeches for President Johnson in the 1960’s.
26. By the end of 1966, Steinbeck observed the Vietnam War in person. How
did the experience have an impact on him? He changed his mind from
pro-war to the realization that we could not win.
Steinbeck’s Death
27. Steinbeck died on December 20, 1968, and his ashes are buried in
Salinas, California.
28. A museum, costing over ten million dollars, has been constructed in his
honor in Salinas. What is ironic about the location? Near where they
burned his books.
29. What two things did Steinbeck say would be more appropriate venues to
dedicate to him? Bowling alley, brothel, dog tracks