• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Deutsch
  • English
  • Italiano

Book Reports

help with reading books

  • Home
  • Summaries
  • Biographies
  • About

John Steinbeck

John Ernst Steinbeck was an American novelist and short-story writer, who described in his work the unending struggle of people who depend on working in the soil for their livelihood. Steinbeck was born on February 27th, 1902 in Salinas, California and educated at Stanford University. As a young man, Steinbeck worked on a ranch as a fruit picker.

In 1925, when he was in his early twenties, Steinbeck moved to New York City and began trying to form a career as a writer. He was unsuccessful, and 3 years later moved back to California to work as a tour guide at Lake Tahoe. It was there that he met his first wife, Carol Henning and the two married two years later in 1930. He soon moved into a cottage owned by his father and began writing with the gift of paper from older family members. During the Great Depression of the 1930's, Steinbeck later claimed that he and his wife survived off of fish that he caught himself and vegetables from his own garden.

In 1929, Steinbeck's first novel 'Cup of Gold' was published. It is a novel based on the life of privateer Henry Morgan. In the early 1930's, Steinbeck produced several shorter novels and in 1935 he produced his first successful novel called, 'Tortilla Flat'. The novel won the California Commonwealth Club's Gold Metal and in 1942 the book was adapted into a film starring Spencer Tracy and Hedy Lamarr. It was also during this time that Steinbeck began writing a series of so-called 'California novels' and Dust Bowl fiction that were set among normal, salt of the earth people during the time of the Great Depression. These included, 'In Dubious Battle' (1936), 'Of Mice and Men' (1937) and, Steinbeck's most famous work, 'The Grapes of Wrath' (1939).

'The Grapes of Wrath' became the best-selling novel of 1939 and went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction among other esteemed awards. Both 'Of Mice and Men' and 'The Grapes of Wrath' were also adapted into Academy-Award winning films. Throughout the 1940's, Steinbeck continued to write while also serving as a war correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune and working with the predecessor to the CIA, the Office of Strategic Services. Steinbeck befriended many soldiers and commanders during World War II and was present for many actual battles in Italy and Germany.

After the war, Steinbeck returned with some psychological trauma and shrapnel wounds and began writing again. By this point, Steinbeck had divorced Carol Henning and his second wife, Gwyn Conger with whom he had two sons, and married Elaine Scott, his third and final wife. In 1952 'East of Eden', Steinbeck's longest novel was published it was also made into a movie which became the famous actor James Dean's film debut. In 1961, Steinbeck published his last novel, 'The Winter of Our Discontent' which was not a success as the public felt that the tone differed too much from his earlier work.

However, the next year, 1962, Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize in Literature. John Steinbeck died on December 20th 1968 of heart disease and congestive heart failure. He was 66 year old. He was cremated and interred near his parents and grandparents graves in Salinas, California. To this day he remains a literary icon and many of his books are still considered classic literature.

East of Eden

Author: John Steinbeck

Published in 1952, "East of Eden" plays itself as biographical. The narrator, Steinbeck is telling the story of two families; the Trasks and his own family, the Hamiltons. Samuel Hamilton, Steinbeck's maternal grandfather, is one of the main characters in the book. Steinbeck's original attempt was to share the Salinas … [Read more...] about East of Eden

Cannery Row

Author: John Steinbeck

"Cannery Row" is a novel written by the famous American author John Steinbeck and published in 1945. The novel became so successful that the area that Cannery Row was based on in Monterey California was later renamed Cannery Row in it honors. The novel was adapted into a film in 1982 starring Nick Nolte and Debra … [Read more...] about Cannery Row

The Pearl

Author: John Steinbeck

"The Pearl" is a novella written by the famous American author John Steinbeck and published in 1947. The story was originally published in an issue of 'Woman's Home Companion' magazine and is the re-imagining of a Mexican folk tale that Steinbeck heard while traveling in La Paz, Mexico in 1940. The novella is … [Read more...] about The Pearl

Of Mice and Men

Author: John Steinbeck

"Of Mice and Men" is a classic novella written by John Steinbeck and published in 1937.  The world within the novella is based off of the author's own experiences working as a farm hand in the 1920's and the title of the book is taken from the Robert Burns poem, "To a mouse" which states: “The best laid schemes of mice … [Read more...] about Of Mice and Men

Primary Sidebar

About Us

Book Reports is a website for those who need quick and effective help with organizing, reading, understanding and writing book reports that are fairly standard among classes, despite the subject of the … [more] about About

Top Authors

Alexander Pushkin Alexandre Dumas Anton Chekhov Bible Brothers Grimm Charles Dickens Charles Perrault Edgar Allan Poe Erich Kästner Ernest Hemingway Eugene Ionesco Fyodor Dostoyevsky Hans Christian Andersen J.R.R. Tolkien Jane Austen John Steinbeck Jules Verne Leo Tolstoy Mark Twain Moliere Ovid Rudyard Kipling Ursula K. LeGuin Virginia Woolf William Shakespeare
All authors >>

Recent book reports

The Secret Garden

"The Secret Garden" is one of the most popular children's novels written by Frances Hodgson … [more] about The Secret Garden

The Brothers Karamazov

Dostoyevsky's last novel was "The Brothers Karamazov", it was written over a period of a year … [more] about The Brothers Karamazov

Snow White

The Grimm brothers are the authors of many fairy tales that are well known to this day. They … [more] about Snow White

Beauty and the Beast

"Beauty and the Beast" is one of the most popular Perrault's fairy tales, but also more special … [more] about Beauty and the Beast

Cinderella

Charles Perrault is one of the most famous fairy tale writers, popular among children. Just … [more] about Cinderella

Copyright © 2015.–2021. Informativka. All rights reserved.

Deutsch | English | Italiano | Pусский