Contributions

John Steinbeck, American author and winner of the Nobel Prize in 1962, was a leading writer of novels about the working class and was a major spokesman for the victims of the Great Depression (a downturn in the American system of producing, distributing, and using goods and services in the 1930s, and during which time millions of people lost their jobs).

John Steinbeck was a great "people watcher" and was facinating with people of all walks of life. He experienced a great deal in his lifetime and he wrote about it. At first he was not a successful writer and even left writing for a period of time, but got back into writing.

John Steinbeck was one of the best-known American novelists of the mid-20th century. His frequent topic was the plight of the misfits, the homeless and the hopeless in a fast-changing America. Those themes sometimes earned him comparisons with his contemporary William Faulkner.

STEINBECK’S CONTRIBUTIONS TO BOOKS AND PERIODICALS

Citations include original contributions, such as introductions and prefaces, and material published elsewhere. The Collection includes the author’s article, “The How, When, and Where of High School,” from the 1919 Salinas High School Year Book, El Gablian, and a copy of “Adventures in Arcademy: A Journey Into the Ridiculous” from the Stanford Spectator, from June 1924.