Editing John Steinbeck (section)

===Ed Ricketts===
In the 1930s and 1940s, [[Ed Ricketts]] strongly influenced Steinbeck's writing. Steinbeck frequently took small trips with Ricketts along the California coast to give himself time off from his writing<ref name="Journey" /> and to collect biological specimens, which Ricketts sold for a living. Their coauthored book, ''Sea of Cortez'' (December 1941), about a collecting expedition to the [[Gulf of California]] in 1940, which was part travelogue and part natural history, published just as the U.S. entered World War II, never found an audience and did not sell well.<ref name="Journey">{{Cite book|title=A Journey into Steinbeck's California|author=Susan Shillinglaw|publisher=Roaring Forties Press|year=2006}}</ref> However, in 1951, Steinbeck republished the narrative portion of the book as ''[[The Log from the Sea of Cortez]]'', under his name only (though Ricketts had written some of it). This work remains in print today.<ref>[http://www.seaofcortez.org/ A website devoted to Sea of Cortez literature, with information on Steinbeck's expedition.] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090720104329/http://www.seaofcortez.org/ |date=July 20, 2009 }} Retrieved July 6, 2009.</ref>

Although Carol accompanied Steinbeck on the trip, their marriage was beginning to suffer, and ended a year later, in 1941, even as Steinbeck worked on the manuscript for the book.<ref name="Benson"/> In 1942, after his divorce from Carol he married Gwyndolyn "Gwyn" Conger.<ref name="NewCentury">{{cite book|last=Fensch|first=Thomas|title=Steinbeck and Covici|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yXE_v1etBjMC&pg=PA33|series=New Century exceptional lives|year=2002|publisher=New Century Books|isbn=978-0-930751-35-7|page=33}}{{Dead link|date=September 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>

Ricketts was Steinbeck's model for the character of "Doc" in ''[[Cannery Row (novel)|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.<ref name=bruce>Bruce Robison, "Mavericks on Cannery Row," ''[[American Scientist]]'', vol. 92, no. 6 (November–December 2004), p. 1: a review of Eric Enno Tamm, [http://www.americanscientist.org/bookshelf/pub/mavericks-on-cannery-row ''Beyond the Outer Shores: The Untold Odyssey of Ed Ricketts, the Pioneering Ecologist who Inspired John Steinbeck and Joseph Campbell''] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090604181032/http://www.americanscientist.org/bookshelf/pub/mavericks-on-cannery-row |date=June 4, 2009 }}, Four Walls Eight Windows, 2004.</ref>

Steinbeck's close relations with Ricketts ended in 1941 when Steinbeck moved away from Pacific Grove and divorced his wife Carol.<ref name="Journey"/> Ricketts's biographer Eric Enno Tamm opined that, except for ''[[East of Eden (novel)|East of Eden]]'' (1952), Steinbeck's writing declined after Ricketts's untimely death in 1948.<ref name=bruce/>