Steinbeck, John ___ 1902-1968 ___ American ___ writer

BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY
Born in 1902, the third of four children, Steinbeck was raised at the family home in Salinas, California, and studied at the local school and at Stanford University. He took various jobs to support himself while studying and writing, but dropped out of university and took work on a freighter heading for the east coast. Less than a year later, he returned to California on another steamer. While continuing to write he worked as caretaker. His first novel, 'Cup of Gold', was published in 1929. He moved to San Francisco, and married Carol Henning in 1930. But soon he and Carol moved to his family's cottage in Pacific Grove. His mother and father died in the mid-1930s. During the Depression the couple lived largely on what they could grow or catch in the sea. Steinbeck, though, travelled around the area and wrote about what he saw. His finest novels were written in the 1930s, novels such as 'Tortilla Flat', 'Of Mice and Men' and 'The Grapes of Wrath'. In the early 1940s, Steinbeck divorced Henning, moved to New York, and married Gwyndolyn Conger. For a short while, Steinbeck worked as a war correspondent in Europe for 'The Herald Tribune'. Gwyndolyn and Steinbeck had two sons, Thomas and John, but were divorced in 1948. The same year he moved back to Pacific Grove, where he wrote 'East of Eden' and an accompanying journal. In 1950, Steinbeck married his third wife, Elaine Scott, with whom he lived in various places, including in the New York area, Mexico and Sag Harbor. Steinbeck continued to write novels which were dramatised or turned into films. He also took a cross-country trip with a French poodle and wrote a diary published as 'Travels with Charley'. In 1962, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
A biography link
Wikipedia bio
The Diary Review - A run-of-the-mill book

DIARY DATES, CONTENT DESCRIPTORS
1940 1951 1960 ___ literary maritime travel science self creativity

WEB TEXT LINKS
about
a few pages
a few pages

ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT LINKS
Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin

SOME PUBLISHED TITLES
The Log from the 'Sea of Cortez'
Journal of a Novel; The East of Eden Letters
Working Days: The Journals of the Grapes of Wrath 1938-1941
 

May 2005, August 2008
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IMPORTANT NOTES AND CAUTIONS: 1) The first line of basic information may be incomplete in several ways: some historical figures have different names (titles, pen-names); their birth and death dates may be unknown or uncertain (g - guess, c - circa); similarly, their occupations may be unknown, or they may have had other jobs; and, for early diarists, I've used 'British' a bit too freely. 2) The biographical summary may not be accurate. It was compiled quickly from various sources, mostly on the internet, and the facts were not checked anywhere near as rigorously as they would have been if they'd been intended for publication in a printed form. 3) The journal dates and descriptors (which are in no particular order) must be treated with caution: since I have not examined the diaries myself, the descriptors are only guesses based on bibliographies, anthologies and internet biographies. 4) For the biography and etext links, I have ignored any sites with charges, and I have avoided, wherever possible, those with pop-ups or too much advertising. I have limited myself to providing three etext links where there is some variety between them. 5) For the original manuscript links, I have limited myself to providing a maximum of two (although, for a few diarists, their original diaries are held in more than two places). 6) I have provided the titles - chosen randomly - for up to three printed editions of the diaries.