THIS IS THE DIARY JUNCTION - DATA AND LINKS FOR OVER 500 HISTORICAL AND LITERARY DIARISTS
PLEASE TAKE A MOMENT ALSO TO LOOK AT KIP FENN, A MAJOR NOVEL ABOUT THE 21st CENTURY
- freely available on this site
Steinbeck, John ___ 1902-1968 ___ American
___ writer
BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY
Born in 1902, the third of four
children, Steinbeck was raised at the family home in Salinas, California,
and studied at the local school and at Stanford University. He took various
jobs to support himself while studying and writing, but dropped out of university
and took work on a freighter heading for the east coast. Less than a year
later, he returned to California on another steamer. While continuing to
write he worked as caretaker. His first novel, 'Cup of Gold', was published
in 1929. He moved to San Francisco, and married Carol Henning in 1930. But
soon he and Carol moved to his family's cottage in Pacific Grove. His mother
and father died in the mid-1930s. During the Depression the couple lived
largely on what they could grow or catch in the sea. Steinbeck, though,
travelled around the area and wrote about what he saw. His finest novels
were written in the 1930s, novels such as 'Tortilla Flat', 'Of Mice and
Men' and 'The Grapes of Wrath'. In the early 1940s, Steinbeck divorced Henning,
moved to New York, and married Gwyndolyn Conger. For a short while, Steinbeck
worked as a war correspondent in Europe for 'The Herald Tribune'. Gwyndolyn
and Steinbeck had two sons, Thomas and John, but were divorced in 1948.
The same year he moved back to Pacific Grove, where he wrote 'East of Eden'
and an accompanying journal. In 1950, Steinbeck married his third wife,
Elaine Scott, with whom he lived in various places, including in the New
York area, Mexico and Sag Harbor. Steinbeck continued to write novels which
were dramatised or turned into films. He also took a cross-country trip
with a French poodle and wrote a diary published as 'Travels with Charley'.
In 1962, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
One
biography link
DIARY DATES, CONTENT DESCRIPTORS
1940 1951 1960 ___ literary maritime
travel science self creativity
WEB TEXT LINKS
two
short extracts
about Sea of Cortez
ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT LINKS
Harry
Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas ___ East of Eden Journal
SOME PUBLISHED TITLES
The Log from the 'Sea of Cortez'
Journal of a Novel; The East of Eden
Travels with Charley
May 2005
THIS IS THE DIARY JUNCTION - DATA AND LINKS FOR OVER 500 HISTORICAL AND LITERARY DIARISTS
Please
email if you have any corrections, additions or comments. |
IMPORTANT NOTES AND CAUTIONS:
1) The first line of basic information
may be incomplete in several ways: some historical figures have different
names (titles, pen-names); their birth and death dates may be unknown or
uncertain (g - guess, c - circa); similarly, their occupations may be unknown,
or they may have had other jobs; and, for early diarists, I've used 'British'
a bit too freely. 2) The biographical summary may not be accurate. It was
compiled quickly from various sources, mostly on the internet, and the facts
were not checked anywhere near as rigorously as they would have been if
they'd been intended for publication in a printed form. 3) The journal dates
and descriptors (which are in no particular order) must be treated with
caution: since I have not examined the diaries myself, the descriptors are
only guesses based on bibliographies, anthologies and internet biographies.
4) For the biography and etext links, I have ignored any sites with charges,
and I have avoided, wherever possible, those with pop-ups or too much advertising.
I have limited myself to providing three etext links where there is some
variety between them. 5) For the original manuscript links, I have limited
myself to providing a maximum of two (although, for a few diarists, their
original diaries are held in more than two places). 6) I have provided the
titles - chosen randomly - for up to three printed editions of the diaries. |