A native Californian, writer John Steinbeck built his career on stories based primarily in Northern and Central California, around his hometown of Salinas, near Monterey. Best known for the novels Of Mice and Men (1937), The Grapes of Wrath (1939), and East of Eden (1952), along with numerous short stories, Steinbeck also published non-fiction, plays, and screenplays. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for The Grapes of Wrath, and, in 1962, he received the Nobel Prize for Literature. Steinbeck's works have been widely read and have been the subject of many motion pictures.

Born John Ernest Steinbeck in the fertile valley of Salinas, California, inland from Monterey Bay, Steinbeck grew up in an environment caught between the transition from farming and ranching to the "respectable culture" of universities and businessmen. Steinbeck's parents were middle-class citizens of Salinas (his father served as Monterey County Treasurer and his mother was...