These observations would later on become the characters in Of Mice and Men. John eventually dropped out of Standford University and began his career as a full-time writer. In 1930, Steinbeck meet Ed Ricketts, who soon is to be his life-long friend. Also that year, he married his sweetheart, Ms. Carol Henning. He then moved to Pacific Grove to find a publisher for A God Unknown. He failed to find a publisher but that did not stop him and he began writing stories for Pastures of Heaven. While writing this short story, he met another man that also became his friend for live by the name of Joseph Campbell. Joseph was a Jungian and a mythologist. He also was the person responsible for getting Steinbeck’s Pastures of Heaven published later that year. In 1933, Joseph also helped publish To a God Unknown and The Red Pony Stories. 1934 was an extremely tragic year for Mr. Steinbeck, the year began good when his story, “The Murder”, appeared in O. Henry Prize Stories. Later that year, John was dealt a tremendous blow when his mother died. John was so upset that he did not write anything for another year. Then when he began to recover and start writing again, his father died in 1936. At that time, John Steinbeck was about half way through writing Of Mice and Men. Again because of John’s despair, he was not able to finish this book right away. But finally he was able to finish it in 1937, and it was published and became his first best seller. In 1939, Steinbeck’s had his favorite year, John was elected to The National Institute of Arts and Letters. He also published his Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Grapes of Wraith. The year of 1944 had many ups and downs for John Steinbeck. A wonderful event was the birth of his first son on the second of August. John had to fight to have his name removed from the credits of Lifeboat because he believed he did not believe in racism and he believed it was inv...
