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), 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.