John Steinbeck Writes to a Journalist Friend With Praise for the Famous Broadway Producer Who Tried to Make a Musical of Steinbeck’s Classic, “Cannery Row”

Steinbeck won the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature “for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humor and keen social perception. Ed Sheehan was a Hawaiian author and columnist for the Honolulu Star Bulletin and longtime friend of Steinbeck about whom he sometimes wrote. Ernest H. Martin was a successful Broadway producer who won Tony Awards for Guys and Dolls and How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. He and Steinbeck had tried for years to produce a musical comedy version of Steinbeck’s Cannery Row, without success. Maxwell David Geismar was an author, literary critic, and biographer whose 1942 book “Writers in Crisis” gave his not always flattering analysis of Steinbeck, Faulkner, Hemingway, etc.

Autograph Letter Signed on a postal card, August 13, 1964 to Sheehan, speaking highly of Broadway producer Martin while denigrating the opinions of Geismar. “I have your letter of July 30 and find it fascinating. Of course I am sensible of Martin’s compliments. If I can write for the Martins of this world the confusions of the Geismars fade into nonsense. But more than anything I would like to go with you to South Kona to sit still and see whether Martin would appear or remain invisible. In the past I have been fairly successful with kakus [a type of barracuda] but never of the Hawaiian breed. Again, thanks for your letter.”