John Ernst Steinbeck was born on February 27, 1902, in Salinas, California. His parents were Ernst and Olive Steinbeck. He was the only son out of four children. His mother was a teacher, and his did was the county treasurer. During his elementary school years, he was interested in biology, the study of living things. John and his sister, Mary, spent a lot of their free time exploring the countryside.
             John was a large boy when he reached high school. His size was an advantage and helped him to excel on the track and basketball team. He also wrote for the school paper, and served as president of the class during his senior year.
             After John's graduation from high school in 1919, he enrolled at Stanford University, in Palo Alto, California. When he was a student there, he wrote satires and poems for the school newspaper.
             In 1925, 23-year-old John moved to New York City, New York, and got a job as a newspaper reporter. By 1926, he had grown tired of the east coast, and he returned to California, where he was hired to be a caretaker at a remote estate in the High Sierras.
             When his first novel, Cup of Gold was published in 1929, he makes enough money from the sale of the book to permit him to marry Carol Henning in 1929. The young couple moved into a three-room cottage that his father had built on the Monterey Peninsula.
             When he took a break from his writing, he often walked along the beach. In 1930, John met a man who shared his affection for nature's wonders. The man's name was Ed Ricketts. He owned a laboratory that supplied marine specimens to schools and research institutions. He spent his days searching for some sea creatures in the waters of the Monterey Bay. John accompanied Ed on many of his collecting trips, and the two men had some memorable adventures together.
             John continued to write and the years between 1935 and 1940 were a time of success after success for the author. He wrote sever...