John Steinbeck Statistics

John Steinbeck sales statistics

• His 1939 best-seller The Grapes of Wrath has sold 14 million copies
• It sold 428,900 copies in its first year
• Of Mice and Men sold 500,000 copies in its first year
• It has sold more than 7.5 million copies to date
• A special edition of The Grapes of Wrath sold at auction for $47,800

How many books did John Steinbeck publish?

• Steinbeck published a total of 31 pieces of written work
  • 12 novels
  • 12 non-fiction books
  • 4 novellas
  • 2 collections of short stories
  • 1 adaptation of Arthurian legends
• Steinbeck also wrote two movies – a documentary and a western
• 5 of these written pieces of work plus the western movie were published after Steinbeck’s death in 1968
• These mainly comprise of his letters and journals but also include his adaptation of Arthurian legends

Published during Steinbeck’s lifetime

Title	Published	Type of work	Page count	Audiobook length
Cup of Gold	1929	Novel	159	8 hrs and 19 mins
The Pastures of Heaven	1932	Short stories	240	7 hrs and 13 mins
The Red Pony	1933	Novella	128	2 hrs and 55 mins
To a God Unknown	1933	Novel	247	8 hrs and 53 mins
Tortilla Flat	1935	Novel	208	7 hrs and 3 mins
In Dubious Battle	1936	Novel	270	10 hrs and 3 mins
Of Mice and Men	1937	Novella	107	3 hrs and 11 mins
The Long Valley	1938	Short stories	272	8 hrs and 9 mins
Their Blood Is Strong	1938	Nonfiction	34	–
The Grapes of Wrath	1939	Novel	464	21 hrs and 1 min
The Forgotten Village	1941	Film	–	–
Sea of Cortez: A Leisurely Journal of Travel and Research	1941	Nonfiction	598	–
The Moon Is Down	1942	Novel	188	3 hrs and 42 mins
Bombs Away: The Story of a Bomber Team	1942	Nonfiction	192	4 hrs and 36 mins
Cannery Row	1945	Novel	208	5 hrs and 59 mins
The Wayward Bus	1947	Novel	352	9 hrs and 14 mins
The Pearl	1947	Novella	68	2 hrs and 35 mins
A Russian Journal	1948	Nonfiction	240	7 hrs and 1 min
Burning Bright	1950	Novella	324	2 hrs and 53 mins
The Log from the Sea of Cortez	1951	Nonfiction	288	11 hrs and 46 mins
East of Eden	1952	Novel	608	25 hrs and 23 mins
Sweet Thursday	1954	Novel	288	8 hrs and 56 mins
The Short Reign of Pippin IV: A Fabrication	1957	Novel	131	4 hrs and 39 mins
Once There Was a War	1958	Nonfiction	208	7 hrs and 20 mins
The Winter of Our Discontent	1961	Novel	311	10 hrs and 22 mins
Travels with Charley: In Search of America	1962	Nonfiction	288	7 hrs and 58 mins
America and Americans	1966	Nonfiction	208	17 hrs and 23 mins

Published after Steinbeck’s death

Title	Published	Type of work	Page count	Audiobook length
Journal of a Novel: The East of Eden Letters	1969	Nonfiction	192	9 hrs
Viva Zapata!	1975	Film	–	–
Steinbeck: A Life in Letters	1975	Nonfiction	860	–
The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights	1976	Fiction	416	11 hrs and 18 mins
Working Days: The Journals of The Grapes of Wrath	1989	Nonfiction	240	–
Steinbeck in Vietnam: Dispatches from the War	2012	Nonfiction	224	–

John Steinbeck life and facts

• He was born in 1902 in California, USA
• Steinbeck graduated from high school in 1919 before going to Stanford to study English Literature
• Steinbeck didn’t graduate from Stanford and eventually left in 1925 for New York City
• Steinbeck married his 1st wife and they moved back to California to live in a cottage owned by his parents – they gave him loans and materials to fund his career as a writer
• Steinbeck claims to have lived off fishing, off the land and by stealing bacon from local markets during the great depression and they eventually claimed welfare 
• Steinbeck published his first book in 1929
• His first successful book was Tortilla Flat, published in 1935. It was his 5th release
• Around this time, Steinbeck started writing about California and the dust bowl
• He released Of Mice and Men that was critically acclaimed in 1937
• Steinbeck’s greatest work – The Grapes of Wrath – was published in 1939
• It was the best selling book of 1939 and won the award for favorite fiction book at the ABA Book Awards that year
• During WWII, Steinbeck was a war reporter for the New York Herald Tribune
• In 1952, Steinbeck published East of Eden – he considered this his greatest work
• In 1962, Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature
• Steinbeck died in NYC at the age of 66 in 1968