John Steinbeck These included "In Dubious Battle", "Of Mice and Men" and "The Grapes of Wrath". He also wrote an article series called "The Harvest Gypsies" for the "San Francisco News" about the plight of the migrant worker. "Of Mice and Men" was a drama about the dreams of two migrant agricultural laborers in California. It was critically acclaimed and Steinbeck's 1962 Nobel Prize citation called it a "little masterpiece". Its stage production was a hit, starring Wallace Ford as George and Broderick Crawford as George's companion, the mentally childlike, but physically powerful itinerant farmhand Lennie. Steinbeck refused to travel from his
John Steinbeck John Steinbeck IV (1946–1991). Ricketts was Steinbeck's model for the character of "Doc" in "Cannery Row" (1945) and "Sweet Thursday" (1954), "Friend Ed" in "Burning Bright", and characters in "In Dubious Battle" (1936) and "The Grapes of Wrath" (1939). Ecological themes recur in Steinbeck's novels of the period. Steinbeck's close relations with Ricketts ended in 1941 when Steinbeck moved away from Pacific Grove and divorced his wife Carol. Ricketts' biographer Eric Enno Tamm notes that, except for "East of Eden" (1952), Steinbeck's writing declined after Ricketts' untimely death in 1948. Steinbeck's novel "The Moon Is Down" (1942), about the Socrates-inspired