John Ernst Steinbeck was born on February 27, 1902 in Salinas, California His books spanned America's Depression, and leaned heavily on intense discriptions of the human condition and social criticism. His most famous novels are The Grapes of Wrath (1939) and Of Mice and Men (1937).
Andy
Not that I want to discourage you from using answerbank, but if you went to http://www.xrefer.com
and typed in STEINBECK, you'd get various references to the man and his work.