John Steinbeck was born in Salinas California on February 27, 1902. His parents were originally from Europe and then moved to California. The fact that his father was a teacher helped John very much to advance his reading and writing skills. Like George and Lennie, John moved from farm to farm looking for work to help out his parents in buying necessities for the family.

John was accepted to Stanford University, but he later left to go to New York to try to be a successful writer. After two years of failure, he returned once again to his home in California. In 1930 John was married for the first time to a woman named Carol Henning. They moved to a town called Pacific Grove, also located in California. He wrote mainly from things he saw around him there, poor and depressed people became his theme as he soon became the master...