"A timeless tour through John Steinbeck's world, REAL LIFE ON CANNERY ROW highlights the unique individuals and memorable moments that influenced Steinbeck's iconic novel. Characters from the novel are brought to life, showcasing true stories behind fictional events. The book offers essential insight into CANNERY ROW and is a helpful companion piece for Steinbeck students and fans"--Provided by publisher.

Demonstrating the power a single author can have on generations of individuals around the world, The Heart of Steinbeck enables readers to make sense of both the past and our own times today through the prism of John Steinbecks work.

"Today's foremost Steinbeck scholar writes an extended meditation on the influence of The Grapes of Wrath, to commemorate the 75th anniversary of its first publication In this compelling biography of a book, Susan Shillinglaw delves into John Steinbeck's classic to explore the cultural, social, political, scientific, and creative impact of The Grapes of Wrath upon first publication, as well as its enduring legacy. First published in April 1939, Steinbeck's National Book Award-winning epic of the Great Depression chronicles the Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s and the story of one Oklahoma farm family, the Joads, driven from their homestead and forced to travel west to the promised land of California. The story of their struggle remains eerily relevant in today's America and stands as a portrait of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless, "in the souls of the people.""--

Best known as a novelist - especially for The Grapes of Wrath, his heartfelt portrayal of disenfranchised dustbowl farmers in the 1930s - John Steinbeck nonetheless devoted a good portion of his literary energies to nonfiction. In this study, Warren French looks at the entire body of Steinbeck's nonfiction writing - journalism, essays, travelogues - both in its own right and in its capacity to illuminate the progress, and decline, of Steinbeck's entire writing career. The topics of Steinbeck's nonfiction evince both his personal interests and, particularly earlier on, the times he lived in. There are his dispatches for the New York Herald Tribune from the European war zone during World War II, collected in Once There Was a War (1959), and his record of the expedition to the Gulf of California with friend and biologist Ed Ricketts to collect samples of marine life (reflecting his passing interest in a science career), published as Sea of Cortez (1941). And there are travelogues: A Russi

This book aims to both describe and analyze the way Steinbeck learned the writing craft. It begins with his immersion in the short story, some years after he stopped attending Stanford University. Aside from a weak first novel, his professional writing career began with the publication in 1932 of The Pastures of Heaven, stories set in the Salinas Valley and dedicated to his parents. From that book he wrote truly commanding stories such as The Red Pony. Intermixed with Steinbeck's journalism about California's labor difficulties, his writing skill led to his 1930 masterpieces, Of Mice and Men, In Dubious Battle, and The Grapes of Wrath. The latter novel, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1940, led eventually to his being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962. He continued producing such wide-ranging works as The Pearl, East of Eden, The Winter of our Discontent, and Travels with Charley up to just a few months before his death in 1968.

Mr. Steinbeck, Pulitzer Prize winning author, was investigated by the FBI during the 1940's because of his alleged association with communist front groups.