John Steinbeck, US novelist and author of Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men Was born on this date in 1902. 10 facts about him.
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He was born in Salinas, California, which became a setting for many of his books. Not that the people of the town appreciated it much, at least not while he was alive. At least twice, residents staged public burnings of his books.
Unlike most writers, he wasn’t much of a reader as a child. In fact, he hated reading and called books “printed demons”. The book that changed his mind was a simple version of Le Morte d’Arthur which his aunt gave him when he was nine. His fascination with the knights of the round table became the gateway to the world of reading. Arthurian legend was an influence on his writing, too, as he used some of the plots and themes. He even started writing a modern version called The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights, but never finished it.
He went to Stanford University, most likely to please his parents. He took as many writing classes as he could but his other choices were somewhat random. He tried to take a course in human dissection, because he “wanted to learn about people” but was turned down. He didn’t see the point of exams and dropped out without taking his finals.
He then took a job as a caretaker at the luxe Cascade Estates on the California side of Lake Tahoe near Mount Tallac. It was here that he wrote his first book, Cup of Gold.
He married three times. His first wife was Carol Henning, of whom he said, “The girl isn’t wonderful at all or awfully beautiful at all, or anything, but I’m in love with her. And she is clever.” She stayed with him while he struggled as a writer, although it was rumoured she had affairs. Steinbeck certainly did – he took up with a nightclub singer called Gwyn Conger and married her when his first marriage ended. They were married for five years and had two sons before getting divorced. His third wife was Elaine Anderson, to whom he remained married until his death.
He wrote a story specifically for Alfred Hitchcock to make into a film, at Hitchcock’s request. The film was called The Lifeboat. Steinbeck, however, had issues with the way Hitchcock portrayed one of his characters. He claimed they had turned his black character, who Steinbeck has written as having “dignity, purpose, and personality” into a stereotype. He asked 20th Century Fox to remove his name from the credits. They refused.
He had a pet Rat called Burgess. While married to Gwyn Conger, he bought home the baby rat, much to her delight. They took Burgess everywhere and he’d often sit on Steinbeck’s shoulder when he was driving. It’s said Steinbeck had a bit of a mean streak and he’d sometimes let Burgess loose when they had guests because he’d make the women scream. He loved that rat, though. When it got sick and the vet refused to treat it, he had to put the rat to sleep himself in the gas oven. In her memoirs, his wife wrote that this was the only time she saw him cry.
He had a Dog, too, an Irish setter called Toby who famously once ate the first half of the manuscript for Of Mice and Men, so Steinbeck had to spend two months re-writing it. He wrote, “I was pretty mad but the poor little fellow may have been acting critically.”
During the second world war he was hired by the New York Herald Tribune to go to Europe and report on the war. Rather than write about battles and tactics, Steinbeck focused on the human stories, such as a soldier who feared his wife would no longer love him because of his injuries.
Steinbeck’s favoured method of writing was to use a Pencil. Every day he’d sharpen 24 pencils before he started writing and could use as many as 100 during the course of a day’s work. He was fussy about his pencils, too. They had to be long, round and Black – he hated the Yellow ones.
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