Biography of John Steinbeck

In Salinas, California on Febuary 27, 1902 the third of four children John Steinbeck was born as John Ernst Steinbeck. His father John Steinbeck, Sr. served as the Country treasurer. His mother Olive ( Hamilton ) Steinbeck was a former school teacher had fostered Steinbeck's love of reading and the written word. He had attended Salinas High School and graduated in 1919; then attended Standford University. In 1925 he left Stanford permenetly to purse his writing career. He wrote his first novel Cup of Gold in 1929 it attracted very little attention though. His other two books that he wrote The Pastures of Heaven and To a God Unknown were also attracted little attention. In 1935 Steinbeck had gotten married to his first wife Carol Henning. They lived in Pacific Grove where much of the material for Torilla Flat and Cannary Row was gathered. Tortilla had marked the turning point in Steinbeck's career in 1935. It has recieved the California commonwealth club's gold medal for the best novel that was written by an author from California. He then had continued writing his stories relying upon extensive reserch and personal observations on human conditions. In 1939 his book Grapes of Wrath had won the pulitzer prize. He was a correspondent for world war II for the New York Heralkd Tribune. Some of his dispatches were later collected and made into Once There Was a War. He was awarded with a nobel prize for Literature in 1962. Steinbeck had remained a kind of person who shunned publicity and was a private person. On December 20, 1968 John Steinbeck died and is survived by his third wife Elaine(scott) Steinbeck and his son Thomas. Steinbecks ashes were placed in the Garden of Memories Cemetery in Salinas, California.