BACKGROUND 
In December 1959 Steinbeck's work on The Acts of King Arthur was interrupted when he suffered a small stroke. The effects were not permanent. Steinbeck, now in his late 50's, put aside the Arthur manuscript and started a new novel, The Winter of Our Discontent, set in the 1960's and published in 1961.

Adlai Stevenson, among others, had encouraged Steinbeck to travel through the U.S. as he had in the 1930's gathering impressions and canvassing attitudes that Steinbeck could cast in the form of a book. The idea appealed to Steinbeck, and as he completed The Winter of Our Discontent, he began making plans for a drive through America. He commissioned the construction of a special vehicle a sturdy truck on the back of which was mounted a cabin in which Steinbeck could sleep, cook, and work. He was delighted when the truck arrived, and spent much of the summer provisioning it for the expedition ahead.

His wife Elaine, concerned about her husband's health, was at first opposed to the trek. She could not change her husband's mind, however, and he christened his vehicle “Rocinante” in honor of Don Quixote's horse. Elaine provided the title Travels With Charley because both Steinbeck and Elaine admired Robert Louis Stevenson's Travels With a Donkey (1879).

Steinbeck decided to take their pet poodle, Charley, on the 10,000 mile journey. Travels With Charley can best be appreciated as an act of courage.

The journey began on September 23, 1960. Steinbeck joined Elaine and her relatives in Amarillo, Texas, in time for Thanksgiving 1960. They returned to New York in January 1961.

The manuscript of Charley was in progress by early February 1961, and was written in part in the West Indies on Barbados and completed in New York. It was published mid-summer 1961 and became one of the largest commercial successes of Steinbeck's career. Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature on October 25, 1962.

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