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John Ernst Steinbeck, Jr. (February 27, 1902 – December 20, 1968) was an American author of twenty-seven books, including sixteen novels, six non-fiction books, and five collections of short stories. He is widely known for the comic novels ''Tortilla Flat'' (1935) and ''Cannery Row'' (1945), the multi-generation epic ''East of Eden'' (1952), and the novellas ''Of Mice and Men'' (1937) and ''The Red Pony'' (1937). The Pulitzer Prize-winning ''The Grapes of Wrath'' (1939),〔http://www.pulitzer.org/bycat/Novel〕 widely attributed to be part of the American literary canon, is considered Steinbeck's masterpiece. In the first 75 years since it was published, it sold 14 million copies. The winner of the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature, he has been called "a giant of American letters".〔 His works are widely read abroad and many of his works are considered classics of Western literature. Most of Steinbeck's work is set in southern and central California, particularly in the Salinas Valley and the California Coast Ranges region. His works frequently explored the themes of fate and injustice, especially as applied to downtrodden or everyman protagonists. ==Early life== John Jr. was born on February 27, 1902, in Salinas, California. He was of German, English, and Irish descent. Johann Adolf Großsteinbeck, Steinbeck's paternal grandfather, had shortened the family name to Steinbeck when he emigrated to the United States. The family farm in Heiligenhaus, Mettmann, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, is still today named "Großsteinbeck." His father, John Ernst Steinbeck, served as Monterey County treasurer. John's mother, Olive Hamilton, a former school teacher, shared Steinbeck's passion for reading and writing.〔. National Steinbeck Centre〕 The Steinbecks were members of the Episcopal Church,〔Alec Gilmore. (John Steinbeck's View of God ). gilco.org.uk〕 although Steinbeck would later become agnostic. Steinbeck lived in a small rural town, no more than a frontier settlement, set in some of the world's most fertile land.〔 He spent his summers working on nearby ranches and later with migrant workers on Spreckels sugar beet farms. There he became aware of the harsher aspects of the migrant life and the darker side of human nature, which supplied him with material expressed in such works as ''Of Mice and Men''.〔 He also explored his surroundings, walking across local forests, fields, and farms.〔Introduction to John Steinbeck, ''The Long Valley'', pp. 9–10, John Timmerman, Penguin Publishing, 1995〕 While working at Spreckels Sugar Company, he would sometimes work in their laboratory, which gave him time to write.〔Jackson J. Benson, ''The True Adventures of John Steinbeck, Writer'' New York: The Viking Press, 1984. ISBN 0-14-014417-X, pp. 147, 915a, 915b, 133〕 He also had considerable mechanical aptitude and fondness for making his own repairs to things he owned.〔 Steinbeck graduated from Salinas High School in 1919 and went from there to study English Literature at Stanford University near Palo Alto, leaving, without a degree, in 1925. He travelled to New York City where he took odd jobs while trying to write. When he failed to have his work published, he returned to California and worked in 1928 as a tour guide and caretaker〔 at Lake Tahoe, where he met Carol Henning, his first wife.〔〔〔Introduction to 'The Grapes of Wrath' Penguin edition (1192) by Robert DeMott〕 The two were married in January 1930 in Los Angeles, where, with friends, he attempted to make money by manufacturing plaster mannequins.〔 When their money ran out six months later due to the market being slow, Steinbeck and Carol moved back to Pacific Grove, California, to a cottage owned by his father, on the Monterey Peninsula a few blocks outside the Monterey city limits. The elder Steinbecks gave John free housing, paper for his manuscripts, and from 1928, loans that allowed him to write without looking for work. During the Great Depression period, Steinbeck bought a small boat, and later claimed that he was able to live on the fish and crab that he gathered from the sea, as well as fresh vegetables from his garden and local farms. When that didn't work, Steinbeck and his wife were not above getting welfare, or rarely even stealing bacon from the local produce market.〔 Whatever food they had, they would share with their friends.〔 Carol became the model for Mary Talbot in Steinbeck's novel Cannery Row.〔 In 1930, Steinbeck met Ed Ricketts, who became a close friend and mentor to Steinbeck during the following decade, teaching him a great deal about philosophy and biology.〔 Ricketts, usually very quiet, yet likable, with an inner self-sufficiency and an encyclopedic knowledge of diverse subjects, became a focus of Steinbeck's attention. Ricketts had taken a college class from Warder C. Allee, a biologist and ecological theorist, who would go on to write a classic early textbook on ecology. Ricketts became a proponent of ecological thinking, in which man was only one part of a great chain of being, caught in a web of life too large for him to control or understand.〔 Meanwhile, Ricketts operated a biological lab on the coast of Monterey, selling biological samples of small animals, fish, rays, starfish, turtles, and other marine forms to schools and colleges. Between the years 1930 to 1936, Steinbeck and Ricketts became close friends. Steinbeck's wife began working at the lab as secretary-bookkeeper.〔 Steinbeck himself began helping out on an informal basis. They formed a common bond based on their love of music and art, and John learned biology and Ricketts' ecological philosophy. When Steinbeck became emotionally upset, Ricketts would sometimes play music for him. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「John Steinbeck」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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