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John Steinbeck

A Literary Life

  • Book
  • © 2017

Overview

Authors:
  1. Linda Wagner-Martin

    1. Chapel Hill, USA

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  • Examines the life and work of a writer who even now frequently receives only grudging acclaim
  • Author is one of the most prominent scholars of American literature in the world
  • Covers an admirable range of genre, such as novels, novellas, journalism, eco-criticism, plays and film work

Part of the book series: Literary Lives (LL)

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Table of contents (12 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xviii
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  2. Steinbeck and the Short Story

    • Linda Wagner-Martin
    Pages 1-17

  3. Tortilla Flat, the Book of the Others

    • Linda Wagner-Martin
    Pages 19-29

  4. Journalism v. Fiction

    • Linda Wagner-Martin
    Pages 31-44

  5. The Grapes of Wrath

    • Linda Wagner-Martin
    Pages 45-63

  6. The Sea of Cortez: A Leisurely Journal of Travel and Research

    • Linda Wagner-Martin
    Pages 65-74

  7. World War II

    • Linda Wagner-Martin
    Pages 75-85

  8. Cannery Row and The Pearl

    • Linda Wagner-Martin
    Pages 87-98

  9. The Ed Ricketts Narratives

    • Linda Wagner-Martin
    Pages 99-111

  10. East of Eden and the 1950s

    • Linda Wagner-Martin
    Pages 113-125

  11. The Winter of Our Discontent

    • Linda Wagner-Martin
    Pages 127-140

  12. Travels with Charley

    • Linda Wagner-Martin
    Pages 141-154

  13. The Nobel Prize for Literature

    • Linda Wagner-Martin
    Pages 155-162

  14. Back Matter

    Pages 163-183
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Keywords

About this book

This book aims to both describe and analyze the way Steinbeck learned the writing craft. It begins with his immersion in the short story, some years after he stopped attending Stanford University. Aside from a weak first novel, his professional writing career began with the publication in 1932 of The Pastures of Heaven, stories set in the Salinas Valley and dedicated to his parents. From that book he wrote truly commanding stories such as The Red Pony. Intermixed with Steinbeck’s journalism about California’s labor difficulties, his writing skill led to his 1930 masterpieces, Of Mice and Men, In Dubious Battle, and The Grapes of Wrath. The latter novel, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1940, led eventually to his being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962. He continued producing such wide-ranging works as The Pearl, East of Eden, The Winter of Our Discontent, and Travels with Charley up to just a few months before his death in 1968.
 

Authors and Affiliations

  • Chapel Hill, USA

    Linda Wagner-Martin

About the author

Linda Wagner-Martin was awarded the Hubbell Medal for Lifetime Service to American Literature in 2011. She has published more than sixty books about American writers, including influential literary biographies on Gertrude Stein, Sylvia Plath, Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Passos, Barbara Kingsolver, Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou, and others. She taught at Wayne State University, Michigan State University, and The University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. 
In the Literary Lives series, she has published works on Ernest Hemingway, Emily Dickinson, Sylvia Plath and Toni Morrison.


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