The Life of John Steinbeck

In Salinas, California on February 27, 1902 John Ernst Steinbeck was born.   His father John Steinbeck senior served as the treasurer of Monterey County. Olive Steinbeck a former schoolteacher with a certain passion for literature, fostered her son’s love for literature and encouraged him greatly on his writing. During many summers Steinbeck began to evolve his love for his nation while working as a hired hand on the California Countryside.  

Steinbeck graduated from the local high school in Salinas. He went to Stanford University though he never finished.   To pay for his education he worked the whole times he was at college. He switched jobs often and sometimes dropped out of college for entire quarters at a time. During the time he was in college he worked toward earning a degree in marine biology but he never accomplished it. Many say that Steinbeck always new he would be a writer. He began small in college by writing short stories or poems that appeared occasionally in the university publications. In 1925 he left Stanford for good to pressure his career as a writer in New York City. Unfortunately he was unsuccessful in getting any of his worked published so he returned home to California.

Steinbeck’s career finally began to kick off when he finally succeed in published his first novel Cup of gold. However this certain novel received little attention. He went on to write The Pastures of Heaven and To a God Unknown but to find them also uneventful. Finally in 1935 Tortilla Flat and Cannery Row were published and they shot his career into the sky. Tortilla Flat received California Commonwealth Club’s gold medal for best novel by author. Steinbeck learned from in success and based many of his later books on his personal observation of humans. From there in 1939 he wrote the grapes of wrath with won the Pulitzer Prize. In 1962 he was awarded the prize for literature. From there he wrote the Sea of Cortez, Forgotten Village, The Moon in Dawn, Bombs Away, Cannery...