Steinbeck: a life in letters

Abstract

Steinbeck: A Life in Letters (1975), edited by Elaine Steinbeck and Robert Wallsten, compiles a chronological selection of personal, business, and working correspondence written by John Steinbeck from the 1920s until shortly before his death in 1968. The collection traces Steinbeck’s development as an author, recording his daily writing routines, technical experiments, and the conception, drafting, revision, and critical reception of works including Cup of Gold, In Dubious Battle, Of Mice and Men, The Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden, and his prolonged work on Arthurian legends. Addressed to family, close friends such as Carlton A. Sheffield and Webster F. Street, his literary agents Elizabeth Otis and Mavis McIntosh, his editor Pascal Covici, and public figures including Adlai Stevenson and Lyndon B. Johnson, the letters document his ambivalence toward literary celebrity, distrust of critical appraisal, and reactions to receiving the Nobel Prize. The volume also encompasses Steinbeck’s domestic and personal life—detailing his three marriages, periods of financial hardship and self-doubt, extensive travel in Mexico, Europe, and the United States, his wartime reporting during World War II and in Vietnam, and his physical decline. – AI-generated abstract.