John Steinbeck: Biography

John Ernst Steinbeck was an American author and Nobel Prize winner for Literature. He is widely regarded as one of the giants of American literature. He has published novels, non-fiction, and two volumes of short stories.

Steinbeck was born on February 27, 1902, in Salinas, California. He is primarily of German descent, but also has English and Irish roots. He graduated from Salinas High School in 1919 and subsequently pursued English literature at Stanford University, but left in 1925 without the degree. He traveled to New York City and attempted to take up a few odd jobs while also keeping up with his writing. When he failed to publish his writing, he returned to his hometown and worked as a caretaker and local guide. Here, he met Carol Henning, his first wife. They were married in 1930 in Los Angeles. He based the character of Mary Talbot in the novel Cannery Row on Carol.

Steinbeck published his debut novel, Cup of Gold, in 1929, a fictional account of the privateer Henry Morgan. Between 1930 and 1933, Steinbeck published three shorter works. His first critical success came with Tortilla Flat (1935), a novel set in postwar California about a group of vagabonds.

In 1962, Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize for Literature for his last novel, The Winter of Our Discontent (1961), for his “realistic and imaginative writing, combining as it does sympathetic humor and keen social perception.”