Biography of John Steinbeck John Steinbeck was born in 1902, in California's Salinas Valley, a region that would eventually serve as the setting for Of Mice and Men as well as many of his other works. He studied literature and writing at Stanford University, but disenrolled in 1925, after six years, without a degree. He moved to New York City and worked as a laborer and journalist for five years, until he completed his first novel in 1929, …showed first 75 words of 254 total…

…showed last 75 words of 254 total…wrote Bombs Away: The Story of a Bomber Team; he published a nonfiction account of his travels through America with his dog, Charley; East of Eden, published in1952, is a saga based on Steinbeck's family history. Steinbeck spent the last years of his life in New York City and Sag Harbor, writing and traveling with his third wife. He won the Nobel Prize in 1962 and died in 1968, leaving a sizeable body of literature behind him.