Steinbeck grew up in Salinas Valley, a rich agricultural area of Monterey County and the setting of many of his works, where he learned firsthand of the difficulties of farm laborers. From 1919 to 1925 he studied intermittently at Stanford University but did not receive a degree.

Steinbeck's first published book, Cup of Gold (1929), was not successful. He then turned to the valleys of rural California for his settings and characters. The Pastures of Heaven (1932) contains a series of closely linked tales about residents of California. To a God Unknown (1933) relates a mystical story of self-sacrifice and is one of Steinbeck's strongest statements about the relationship between people and the land. The Long Valley (1938) is a collection of short stories, among them "The Red Pony," which chronicles the initiation of a ranch boy, Jody Tiflin, into manhood.

Steinbeck's first popular success was Tort

illa Flat (1935), an episodic tale that recounts semihumorously the adventures of a raffish band of Mexican-Americans. The books that ensued were terse and grim. In Dubious Battle (1936) is the tragic story of a young labor organizer during an apple pickers' strike. OF MICE AND MEN (1937) depicts the lives of two itinerant farm workers and the tragedy that comes when their dreams are shattered. Written as a "play-novel," it was produced on Broadway in 1937 and filmed in 1939. Their Blood Is Strong (1938) is a nonfictional account of conditions in migrant agricultural workers' camps derived largely from articles written for the San Francisco News. It probably formed the basis for The GRAPES OF WRATH (1939; film, 1940), which won the 1940 Pulitzer Prize for fiction and brought the plight of dispossessed farmers to the public's attention.

Bibliography: Benson, Jackson T., The True Adventures of John Steinbeck, Writer: A Biography (1990); Bloom, Harold, ed., John Steinbeck (1986); DeMott, R., ed., Working Days: The Journals of "The Grapes of Wrath" (1989); Ditsky, John, Critical Essays on Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath" (1989); Fensch, Thomas, ed., Conversation with John Steinbeck (1988); French, Warren, John Steinbeck, 2d ed. (1975); Kiernan, Thomas, The Intricate Music: A Biography of John Steinbeck (1979); Levant, Howard, The Novels of John Steinbeck: A Critical Study (1975); Lisca, Peter, The Wide World of John Steinbeck (1981); McCarthy, Paul, John Steinbeck (1979); Millichap, Joseph, Steinbeck and Film (1983); Noble, Donald R., ed., The Steinbeck Question: New Essays in Criticism

Some common words found in the essay are:
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