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No discussion of great American writers is complete without a serious look at the life and works of John Steinbeck. Steinbeck, more than any other writer, became the voice of the depression years, giving a name and a face to the countless ordinary men and women who summoned extraordinary will just to survive.
Steinbeck's genius was his ability to show the heroic character in the most "common" of men. His heroes were migrant workers, laborers, ordinary men and women who faced almost unimaginable adversity and yet managed to keep hope alive and continue to dream.
Steinbeck's first three novels garnered little in the way of attention. It was only after he moved to California that he began producing his best work. In 1935 he wrote Tortilla Flat and followed that effort up with In Dubious Battle in 1936, Of Mice and Men in 1937, The Long Valley in 1938 and his masterpiece, Grapes of Wrath in 1939. Steinbeck would not be nearly as prolific in later years, but still produced such classics as The Pearl, Cannery Row and East of Eden.
It wasn't until 1962, long after his finest works were written, that Steinbeck was honored with the Nobel Prize in Literature. Steinbeck's legacy was captured wonderfully in his New York Times obituary, where Charles Poore wrote:
"His place in [U. S.] literature is secure. And it lives on in the works of innumerable writers who learned from him how to present the forgotten man unforgettably."
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