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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 11, 1962)
MEDFORD MAIL TRIBUNE. MEDFORD. OREGON SUNDAY. NOVEMBER 11. 1962 B 3 Meeting With Steinbeck Recalled by Publisher Covici By RALPH H. COSHAM United Prese International New York WD Browsing through the crowded shelves of a secondhand bookshop in Chicago in search of some thing to read on the train back to New York, Publisher Pascal Covici came across a volume of short stories by a young, unknown author. Ori ginally priced at $2.50, it had been marked down to 10 cents so he bought it. Covici liked the book so much that as soon as he reached New York, he tele phoned the author's agent. The agent was unable to tell him very much about the young man, except that he lived in California and that his latest work had already been rejected by seven pub lishers. Covici read the manu script, liked it, and published it. The novel was "Tortilla Flat"; the author, John Stein beck. Covici recalled this inci dent at a party in New York to celebrate the award to John Steinbeck of the 1962 Nobel Prize for literature in recognition of his "realistic and imaginative" writings. And particularly for his 1961 best seller "The Winter of Our Discontent" a story of the temptations which beset the honest man. Steinbeck is a true artist: an author who writes because something inside tells him that he must. He is a man who shuns the limelight and dislikes the false fripperies which hang from the mantle of fame. He once lost an order for 500 books because he re fused to attend a literary tea and sign copies for the social ites of San Francisco. AMERICAN NOVELIST-John Steinbeck was born in Salinas, Calif., in 1902, a section of the country which provided the background for many of his novels and stories. This year he was awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize for literature. (UPI) KEEP OUT BAD WEATHER YOUR FUEL BILL! . 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" Yi Medlord Mail Tribune And at the Dress conference which followed the announce ment of his Nobel laureate, the tall, thickset author was obviously ill at ease. He wore a neat, double-breasted, dark grey suit with the air of a man who hates to be dressed up. He dislikes pub licity and hates to be photo graphed. The combination of both, multiplied by the num ber of newsmen and photog raphers present, was almost too much. John Ernst Steinbeck was horn Feb. 27. 1902 in Salinas Calif., of mixed German and Irish ancestry. His father, John Ernst Sr., was born in Florida, but spent most of his life in Salinas where he held the post of county treasurer for many years. His mother, j Olive (Hamilton) Steinbeck, I taught in the little red school house of the Big Sur the ranges which surround Sali nas and which provided Stein beck with a locale for some of his later works. Schooling Noted He graduated from Salinas High school in 1918 and studied sporadically at Stan ford University from 1919 to 1925. He was unhappy there at first, but he finally man aged to persuade the authori ties that he was not interested in a degree. He merely wanted to study things which interested him when they interested him. He was in terested in science, marine biology, traveling and changing jobs. He worked on a cattle ranch, in a labora tory and in a sugar refinery. In 1925. John Steinbeck boarded a freighter bound for New York via the Panama Canal. He got a job as a re porter on a New York news paper but was fired because he would report only the poetry and the philosophy he saw in the news. So he tried freelancing, subsidizing his meager income by carrying bricks for the building of Madison Square Garden. Young Steinbeck did not take New York by storm so he decided to return to Cali fornia. He worked for a while as winter caretaker of an estate (losing the job when a pine tree fell onto the own ers' house) and then in a trout hatchery. In his spare time he wrote "Cup of Gold", a semi historical novel of the life and limes of the Caribbean Pirate Henry Morgan. It was his fourth novel, but the first one to be published. Novel Publised That was in 1929. During the next four years, two more were published: "Pastures of Heaven", and "To a God Unknown". The total sales of all three did not exceed 3.000 copies. With the rejection of his new novel, "Tortilla Flat" by seven publishers, John Stein beck had almost given up the thought of writing for living. But the picture changed. "Tortilla Flat" went to eight editions. It was not until "Of Mice and Men", in 1937, however, (hat he began to make a living as a writer. This, one of his most successful novels, be came a bestseller, a Broad way play and a movie. Then, of course, came "The Grapes of Wrath", the story of the struggles of an Okla homa family forced out of their home by drought. This book, which won him the Pulitzer prize in 19411. has become the ardslick by which all his work is measured. Special Assignments During World War II. Stein beck did special assignments for the Uniled Slates Army Air forces and for a time was a war correspondent In Europe. Since then, he has traveled extensively nota bly, in 1048 to Russia, with Photographer Robert Capa, and in I Mil through the Unil ed States wilh Charley, his poodle. Steinbeck learned of (he Nobel award while watching an early morning television newscast seeking the latest on Cuba. "My first reaction was one of disbelief," he said. "Then I had a cup nf colfee. and now 1 feel numb. I feel very unreal." Social Injustice Commenting that much of his work was concerned wilh social injustice we asked Steinbeck whether he himself had ever been a victim of such injustice. "No." he said. 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