Steinbeck won Pulitzer for Grapes of Wrath

John Steinbeck

It is the birthday of John Steinbeck (1902), whose novel The Grapes of Wrath (1939) won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1940. He also wrote Of Mice and Men (1937) and East of Eden (1952). He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962. After leaving Stanford University without a degree and failing to get published in New York, Steinbeck settled into a cottage his parents owned on the Monterey Peninsula. His parents gave him free housing, paper to write on and loans so he could focus on writing. His Tortilla Flat (1935) was his first book that sold well. It was set in Monterey at the end of World War I. He served as a war correspondent during World War II. His last book, Travel With Charley (1962), is based on a 1960 road trip he took with his French poodle, Charley, in a camper around the United States.