Edward F. Ricketts, a marine biologist who lived on the Monterey waterfront in California, was a close friend of John Steinbeck, the novelist. As Professor Astro makes clear, no analysis of Steinbeck’s writing can proceed without a careful study of the life, work, and ideas of Ricketts, who was Steinbeck’s closest personal and intellectual companion for nearly two decades. 
 Ricketts went to California from Chicago in 1923, and from that time until his death in 1948 he operated a biological supply house at Pacific Grove. Steinbeck and Ricketts met in 1930 and struck an immediate friendship. Together they planned a handbook on the marine invertebrates of the San Francisco Bay region. Although this project was never carried out, it paved the way for another venture, a collecting expedition to the Gulf of California which resulted in their collaboration on Sea of Cortez: A Leisurely Journal of Travel and Research, the published record of that trip. As Professor Astro points out, Ricketts served, in varying degrees, as the source of characters in six of Steinbeck’s novels and novelettes and one short story. Perhaps more importantly, the author shows that many of Steinbeck’s central thematic tenets were provided by Ricketts’ passion for holistic and ecological thinking, his associational beliefs about the behavior of men and animals in groups, and his disdain for the acquisition of material wealth. But, he warns, "to say that all of Steinbeck’s concern with science in general and with marine biology in particular came directly from Ricketts is to distort the facts." 
 By analyzing the range and depth of Ricketts’ impact on Steinbeck’s fiction, this book places a major writer in fresh perspective. 
 Richard Astro is an associate professor of English at Oregon State University.

John Steinbeck and Edward F. Ricketts: the shaping of a novelist

Astro, Richard

Literature & Fiction

The University of Minnesota Press

Between Pacific Tides by Edward F. Ricketts and Jack Calvin is arguably the most important book about marine ecology on the Pacific coast of North America. At a time when almost all studies of life in the intertidal zones were taxonomic, Ricketts and Calvin revolutionized the field and helped to lay the groundwork for studies of the impact of environmental change on the natural world. Though Ricketts is perhaps best known as a quirky character in John Steinbeck’s fiction, he was a serious marine biologist who conducted pioneering research.\nIn A Tidal Odyssey, literary scholar Richard Astro and archivist Donald Kohrs explore how Between Pacific Tides came to be, covering both the writing process and the long journey to publication. They tell three interwoven stories: the development of ecology as a valuable new approach to the study of marine life in the intertidal zone; a case study of how new and dynamic science is published and reaches a larger audience; and the intellectual development of Ed Ricketts.\nNot only a scientist but also an expert in music, philosophy, history, and literature, Ricketts and his work impacted a broad range of writers and scholars. A number of these intellectual figures appear in A Tidal Odyssey, including Ricketts’s co-author, Jack Calvin, and illustrator, Ritch Lovejoy; mythologist Joseph Campbell; novelist Henry Miller; composer John Cage; and of course John Steinbeck. The authors have drawn extensively from Ricketts’s archive, including previously unpublished letters, memoranda, notebooks, and photographs.\nA Tidal Odyssey is for anyone interested in the world of Ed Ricketts as well as marine biology, intertidal ecology, and how ecological studies underpin our understanding of the impact of environmental change on the well-being of our planet.

A Tidal Odyssey: Ed Ricketts and the Making of Between Pacific Tides

Biographies & Memoirs

Kohrs, Donald

Professionals & Academics

Oregon State University Press

The Fiction of Bernard Malamud (American Authors Series)

United States

Edward F. Ricketts (Western Writers Series No 21)

Boise State Univ.

Edward F. Ricketts, a marine biologist who lived on the Monterey waterfront in California, was a close friend of John Steinbeck, the novelist. As Professor Astro makes clear, no analysis of Steinbeck’s writing can proceed without a careful study of the life, work, and ideas of Ricketts, who was Steinbeck’s closest personal and intellectual companion for nearly two decades.  Ricketts went to California from Chicago in 1923, and from that time until his death in 1948 he operated a biological supply house at Pacific Grove. Steinbeck and Ricketts met in 1930 and struck an immediate friendship. Together they planned a handbook on the marine invertebrates of the San Francisco Bay region. Although this project was never carried out, it paved the way for another venture, a collecting expedition to the Gulf of California which resulted in their collaboration on Sea of Cortez: A Leisurely Journal of Travel and Research, the published record of that trip. As Professor Astro points out, Ricketts served, in varying degrees, as the source of characters in six of Steinbeck’s novels and novelettes and one short story. Perhaps more importantly, the author shows that many of Steinbeck’s central thematic tenets were provided by Ricketts’ passion for holistic and ecological thinking, his associational beliefs about the behavior of men and animals in groups, and his disdain for the acquisition of material wealth. But, he warns, "to say that all of Steinbeck’s concern with science in general and with marine biology in particular came directly from Ricketts is to distort the facts."  By analyzing the range and depth of Ricketts’ impact on Steinbeck’s fiction, this book places a major writer in fresh perspective.  Richard Astro is an associate professor of English at Oregon State University.

John Steinbeck and Edward F. Ricketts: The Shaping of a Novelist

Arts & Literature

Western Flyer Publishing

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