Steinbeck's first, and arguably best, novel to be set in California was published in 1932. Unfortunately, the Depression was in full swing, and the first two publishing houses that handled The Pastures of Heaven went broke before the novel could be bound. In 1933, the author published To A God Unknown, an unsuccessful allegory, and sold the first two parts of his short story, "The Red Pony."
His first national recognition came when "The Murder" won the O. Henry Prize for short stories in 1934, and was cemented the following year with the strong commercial reception of Tortilla Flat. The publication of this light-hearted tale about vagabonds on the Monterey peninsula marked the beginning of his association with Pascal Covici, the man who was to publish the rest of Steinbeck's major works. The critical reviews were mixed, but the novel proved popular enough with the reading public that Steinbeck was able to sell the movie rights for $3,000, a sum of money greater than any he had received before.
After a trip to Mexico with Ed Ricketts and a change of residence to Los Gatos, a suburb of San Jose, Steinbeck settled down to write In Dubious Battle, a powerful study of a labor strike, which stirred up considerable critical controversy. The year 1936 proved to be a busy one for Steinbeck. Not only did he publish In Dubious Battle, he finished several short stories and was commissioned to write a series of articles for The San Francisco News about conditions in California migrant worker camps. These articles were published in October 1936, and later gathered together in a pamphlet entitled "Their Blood Was Strong." Steinbeck's experiences with these migrant workers would be the foundation on which he based The Grapes of Wrath.
