It's the birthday of John Steinbeck (February 27, 1902), a giant of American letters.

Steinbeck is one of the foremost figures in Western literature. He is famous for works such as The Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men, East of Eden, and In Dubious Battle. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1962. 

He wrote 27 books, including 16 novels, six non-fiction books, and two collections of short stories. Most of Steinbeck's work is set in central California, particularly in the Salinas Valley and the California Coast Ranges region.

The Grapes of Wrath is a story about the Great Depression and describes a family of sharecroppers, the Joads, who were driven from their land due to the dust storms of the Dust Bowl. The title is a reference to the Battle Hymn of the Republic.  It won both the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize for fiction and was adapted as a film starring Henry Fonda and Jane Darwell and directed by John Ford.

"I'll be all aroun' in the dark. I'll be ever'where - wherever you look. Wherever they's a fight so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever they's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there. If Casy knowed, why, I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad an' - I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry an' they know supper's ready. An' when our folks eat the stuff they raise an' live in the houses they build, why, I'll be there.” 

-- Tom Joad, the main protagonist in The Grapes of Wrath

In East of Eden Steinbeck deals with the nature of good and evil in this Salinas Valley saga. The story follows two families: the Hamiltons – based on Steinbeck's own maternal ancestry – and the Trasks, reprising stories about the Biblical Adam and his family. Published in 1952, it was made into a 1955 movie directed by Elia Kazan and starring James Dean.

In 1960, Steinbeck bought a pickup truck and had it modified with a custom-built camper top - rare at the time – and drove across the United States with his faithful 'blue' standard poodle, Charley. Steinbeck nicknamed his truck Rocinate after Don Quixote's "noble steed."  In this sometimes comical, sometimes melancholic book, he describes what he sees from Maine to Montana to California, and from there to Texas and Louisiana and back to his home on Long Island. The restored camper truck is on exhibit in the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas.