John Ernst Steinbeck, Jr. was born on February 27, 1902 and died on December 20, 1968 in New York, New York. He was born in Salinas California and spent most of his life there where most of his books are based on. He attended Stanford, but did not graduate college. He then spent his time after that doing manual labor where most ideas for his books and characters came from. Although most of Steinbeck’s books are fiction they are loosely based off of real people and places he went while he worked as a manual laborer in Salinas California. Despite John Steinbeck’s struggle to get a good start in the beginning of his career, he eventually became on of the best writers from California and one of the best writers in the world. (National Steinbeck Center) John Steinbeck was born in Salinas California. He grew up in a small rural farming town. He spent most of his time working the land or writing about his encounters with people he met while working. While working with immigrants he learned how hard their life was working for how little pay they got. Steinbeck incorporated most of his person experiences with real people he met. Tortilla flat his first popular book was based off of men of Mexican and Native American descent working on the farms in California(American Writers: John Steinbeck). …show more content…
His first books Cup of Gold (1929), The Pastures of Heaven (1932), and To a God Unknown (1933)—were unsuccessful. His book Tortilla Flat (1935) was his first popular book. After that book many of his later books started to be popular such as Grapes of Wrath (1939), which is one of his most popular books he ever wrote, Of Mice and Men (1937), and The Red Pony (1939). These were some of his most popular books that he has written. He wrote 16 novels and only five short stories, but is known as one of the best short story writers. He also won the (Shmoop-John Steinbeck: First