Who Wrote Of Mice and Men, When, How Long Is It, and Where Is It Set?
A short book written to be a play, and a draft eaten by a puppy
Of Mice and Men in brief
| Fact | Answer |
|---|---|
| Author | John Steinbeck (1902 to 1968) |
| Published | February 1937, by Covici-Friede |
| Length | About 100 pages; about 30,000 words; 6 chapters |
| Reading time | About 2 to 3 hours |
| Setting | A ranch near Soledad, Salinas Valley, California |
| Time | The Great Depression, 1930s |
| Story covers | About three days |
| Stage version | Broadway, November 1937 |
Of Mice and Men was written by John Steinbeck and published in February 1937. It is a short novella, around 100 pages and about 30,000 words, which most people read in two to three hours.
It is set on a ranch near Soledad, California, in the Salinas Valley, during the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Who was John Steinbeck?
John Steinbeck was born in Salinas, California, in 1902, in the farming valley he wrote about all his life. As a young man he worked on ranches and in a sugar beet factory alongside migrant labourers, the kind of men who became George, Lennie and the others. He went on to write The Grapes of Wrath, which won the Pulitzer Prize, and East of Eden, and he received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1962.
↑ Back to the topThe dog that ate the first draft
In 1936 Steinbeck's setter puppy, Toby, chewed up about half of the manuscript. He wrote to a friend that he was not sure Toby did not know what he was doing, and spent about two months rewriting. He also joked that he gave the dog only a mild punishment, because the dog might have been a good critic.
↑ Back to the topWhy it reads like a play
Steinbeck called it a play-novelette, a story that could be performed with almost no changes. Each chapter opens with a description of one setting, like a stage direction, then moves through dialogue. A Broadway play followed in November 1937 with Wallace Ford and Broderick Crawford, and it won the New York Drama Critics' Circle award for best play.
↑ Back to the topWhere and when is it set?
The story opens by a pool on the Salinas River, a few miles south of Soledad, and moves to a large grain ranch nearby. It is never dated exactly. But the details, the workers carrying their bindles from job to job, the fifty dollars a month, the fear of being canned, all place it in the hard years of the 1930s, when drought and the Depression sent thousands of workers across California looking for any job.
↑ Back to the topMore about Of Mice and Men
Books Like Of Mice and Men
The Grapes of WrathJohn Steinbeck
Travels with CharleyJohn Steinbeck
East of EdenJohn Steinbeck
The Kite RunnerKhaled Hosseini
Last OrdersGraham Swift
The BFGRoald Dahl
About a BoyNick Hornby
Q & AVikas SwarupWritten by Tori Books for readers and students.