John Steinbeck was born in Salinas California in 1902. His father was the county treasurer and his mother was a school teacher. His mother instilled in him a love of books at an early age. Some of his favorites as a child were Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky and Paradise Lost by Milton.
As a teenager he attended Salinas high-school and went to college at Stanford. He studied marine biology but did not earn a degree as his plan had always been to become a writer. While at Stanford, he achieved minimal recognition when some of his short stories and poems were included in university literary publications.
After college, Steinbeck moved to New York City for a few years. There he worked as a laborer and later a reporter for a New York publication, the American. Not finding what he was looking for, Steinbeck then returned to California.
Steinbeck spent his time taking odd jobs and writing. A few of his jobs included surveyor, watchman, fruitpicker, caretaker, apprentice painter, and apprentice carrier. During a stint as a watchman in 1929, Steinbeck's first book, Cup Of Gold, was written. It did not even earn back the $250.00 advance that his publisher had given him.
The first few books that Steinbeck wrote went pretty unnoticed in the literary world. It was not until 1935 that he wrote his first success, Tortilla Flat. The book was about a "colorful" group of Mexican-Americans whose adventures mirrored those of King Arthur's Knight's of the Round Table. The book earned him thousands, a large improvement from his current wage of $35.00 a week.
The year 1937 braught two large successes for Steinbeck. The first of these was The Red Pony, the story of a yuong boy's journey into adult life. His red pony is "a symbol of his innocence and maturation." The first two parts of the novel were actually published seperately in a literary publication in 1933, and the thrid and fourth parts were not published until 1937.
The next success of 1937 was Of Mice And Men, the tale of two ranchhands in the Salinas Valley of California. Lenni is a very strong and mentally retarded man with a good heart, and his friend George is around to keep him out of trouble and help him with his handicap. Their goal is to own a farm of their own, and they are working to earn enough money to achieve that goal. It is not realized, however, as Lenni accidently kills the foreman's daughter. George shoots him out of mercy to save him from the angry mob about to tear him apart, and to end his suffering in life.
In 1939, Steinbeck wrote his most important novel, the piece of literiture that brings him up to hero status. It follows the story of the Joads, an Oklahoma family forced to leave their homestead and migrate west with thousands of others to California.
