John Steinbeck 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 and Cannery Row, the multi-generation epic East of Eden, and the novellas Of Mice and Men and The Red Pony.

Steinbeck's Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning drama, The Grapes of Wrath (Cort Theatre), widely attributed to be part of the American literary canon, is considered his masterpiece. In the first 75 years since it was published it sold 14 million copies.

Steinbeck was a Nobel Prize winner in Literature and has been called "a giant of American letters". His works are widely read abroad and many of his works are considered classics of Western literature.