John Steinbeck Books In Order
Book links take you to Amazon. As an Amazon Associate I earn money from qualifying purchases.Publication Order of Cannery Row Books
Publication Order of Standalone Novels
Cup of Gold | (1929) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Pastures of Heaven | (1932) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
To a God Unknown | (1933) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Red Pony | (1933) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Tortilla Flat | (1935) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
In Dubious Battle | (1936) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Nothing So Monstrous | (1936) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Of Mice and Men | (1937) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Grapes of Wrath | (1939) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Forgotten Village | (1941) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Wayward Bus | (1947) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Pearl | (1947) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Burning Bright | (1950) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
East of Eden | (1952) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Short Reign of Pippin IV | (1957) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Winter of Our Discontent | (1961) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights | (1976) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Gift | (1992) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Publication Order of Plays
Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas
Flight | (1938) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Vigilante | (1938) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Murder | (2005) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Chrysanthemums | (2007) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Publication Order of Collections
The Long Valley | (1938) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Short Novels of John Steinbeck | (1953) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Chrysanthemums and Other Stories | (1979) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books
The Harvest Gypsies | (1936) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Bombs Away | (1942) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
A Russian Journal | (1948) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Sea of Cortez | (1951) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Log from the 'Sea of Cortez' | (1951) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Once There Was a War | (1958) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Travels with Charley | (1962) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
America and Americans | (1966) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
In Touch | (1969) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Journal of a Novel | (1969) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
On Writing | (1988) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Working Days | (1989) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Of Men and Their Making | (2002) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Steinbeck in Vietnam | (2012) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Publication Order of Anthologies
Great Short Masterpieces of Mystery | (1950) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
50 Great Short Stories | (1952) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Short Story Masterpieces: 35 Classic American and British Stories from the First Half of the 20th Century | (1954) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
This Was Your War | (1960) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Editors on Editing | (1962) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
50 Great American Short Stories | (1963) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
21 Great Stories | (1969) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Unknown California | (1985) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Pendragon Chronicles: Heroic Fantasy from the Time of King Arthur | (1989) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Short Story: 30 Masterpieces | (1992) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Win, Lose or Die | (1996) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Mystery Stories of the Century | (2000) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
40 Short Stories: A Portable Anthology | (2000) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Book of Spies: An Anthology of Literary Espionage | (2003) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Little Big Book of California | (2005) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Not To Be Read Until I Am Dead: And Other Stuff | (2014) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Letters to Change the World: From Pankhurst to Orwell | (2018) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Writers: Their Lives and Works | (2018) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
About John Steinbeck:
John Ernst Steinbeck, Jr. was an American writer and widely known for receiving the-Pulitzer Prize for his winning novels: the novella of Mice and Men in the year 1937, followed by The Grapes of Wrath in 1939, and East of Eden that was published in 1952. He had a total of 27 books that includes five collection of short stories, six non fiction books, and sixteen novels. He later on was the recipient of the-Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962.
John Steinbeck’s Background
He was born in Salinas California on February 27, 1902. He was a descent of Irish, English and German. Their original family name, GroBsteinbeck, was shortened to Steinbeck by his grandfather when he moved to the USA. Their family owns a farm in Germany called “GroBsteinbeck”
John’s father, John Ernst Steinbeck, worked as a treasurer at Monterey County. His mother, Olive Hamilton, was employed a a school teacher. His mother was the one who shared the passion of writing and reading to John. They lived in a not so big rural town. As they settled there, John became-aware of the harsher-aspects of being a migrant and also the dark side of human-nature. This became a supplement for him in expressing his thought through writing as seen in some of his books. He spent his time exploring his surroundings, venturing and wandering in the forest, fields and farms as well.
He graduated high school in 1919 at Salinas High School. He then went to Palo Alto to study at Stanford University where he studied for 5 years until 1925; he left without having a degree on anything. He travelled along to New York where he took some part time jobs while he was trying to write stories of his own. He was back to San Francisco California and was employed again as a caretaker of a fish-hatchery in Tahoe City in 1928. He also worked as a tour-guide. He failed to publish his work that’s why he decided to return to California.
He met his first wife, Carol Henning, at Tahoe City. They were married in the year 1930 and lived in a house that is a property ofhis father at Pacific Grove. His elders gave him free rent and housing. They also supported him to focus more on his writing by giving him loans which allowed him to quit his warehousing job in California and providing him with papers for his manuscripts.
John Steinbeck died due to a congestive heart failure and heart disease at the City of New York December 20, 1968. He had been a smoker since he was young. An autopsy showed that his main coronary arteries where in complete occlusion. His body was kept at a gravesite owned by the Hamilton Family at Salinas along with his maternal grandparents and parents as well. Elaine, his 3rd wife was also buried there in the year 2004.
Influences on Writing
California’s Salinas Valley, where Steinbeck grew up, has a culturally-diverse-place with a rich-presence of immigrant and migratory history. The upcoming battles and upbringing made an impact to him by providing many of his-works a distinct-sense of place, a regionalist flavour. Most of the setting of his stories is in Monterey, Salinas, and some parts of the San Joaquin Valley, all of these areas are usually referred-to as Steinbeck Country.
He had also used direct-memories of his-life in California in his subsequent-novels. One of his inspiration was his childhood friends, Max Wagner, who later became an actor on films, on his novel The Red Pony. He also used history of American-historical conditions and some events in the first-half of 20th century, where he was a first-hand reporter. Struggling characters was always part of his work. Most of them examined more on the situation and condition of those migrant workers and working class during the Great-Depression and Dust Bowl.
He was also been able to work on a wide range of topics and area of interest were shown, including politics, religion, marine biology, history and even mythology. He even wrote a travel dialogue of a road-trip he took in 1960 in his quest to rediscover America.
He also had contacts with leftist-authors, journalist and labour union figures. It is believed that these people influenced his writing when he joined a communist-organization in 1935 called League-of-American-Writers.
There’s also a person who strongly influenced Steinbeck’s writing, Ed Ricketts. He was a companion of Steinbeck along their small trips to California coast while he was writing. They have a travelogue together but it didn’t sell well on their target audiences. Ricketts had been a model as a character in Steinbeck’s novel, Cannery Row, which was published in 1949 and in 3 other novels including: Burning Bright in the year (1936), The-Grapes-of-Wrath in the year (1939) and In Dubious Battle that was published in the year (1936). Most of Steinbeck’s writing this period has ecological themes. Their relationship ended when Steinbeck left Pacific Grove and later divorced his wife Carol.
Literary Works and Impact
His first work, Cup of Gold, was published in 1929. A historical fiction that is about the life-and-death of a privateer named Henry Morgan. The story’s main focus was on Morgan’s sacking and assault of the city of Panama, which is now referred to as the Cup of Gold and the woman-fairer-than-the-sun was reputed to be seen there. It was published by McBride & Co.
One of his popular novels was published in the year 1939 which is the The-Grapes-of-Wrath. It was based on newspaper-articles which talks about the migrant agricultural workers in California. It has been considered to be one of his greatest work of art and was abestselling book of 1939. It was awarded with the National-Book-Award as favourite fiction book of 1939. The book also won the-Pulitzer-Prize for Fiction. It was adapted to film later that year also. This book was controversial because Steinbeck’s political views, portrayal of negative aspects-of-capitalism, and his heart for plight workers let to his backlash. Some board of supervisors in Kern County Board banned-the-book from the country’s library and public school in 1939 which lasted until 1941.
Most of his works are required for reading-lists in American-high-schools. One of his works, Of-Mice-and-Men, is one the key-texts used for English Literature’s General Certificate of Secondary Education in United Kingdom.
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Steinbeck knew what time it was always. He lived his life like there was no tomorrow. Check it out.
It’s Steinbeck baby!