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John Steinbeck’s dog, Toby, ate half of the handwritten pages of Of Mice and Men in 1936. Steinbeck found humor in the situation and continued writing. Steinbeck was a lifelong dog lover and his original title for the book was Something That Happened. Of Mice and Men was banned from public schools due to its depiction of racism.
John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men is one of the classics of American literature, but its iconic status has almost been threatened by an unlikely culprit: the author’s dog. In 1936, Steinbeck was working on the manuscript of Of Mice and Men when his Irish setter, Toby, managed to devour half of Steinbeck’s handwritten pages. This was essentially the loss of two months of writing, but Steinbeck attempted to approach the comically tragic situation with equanimity.
Even at the time, Steinbeck managed to find some humor in having a dog eat his work. In a letter to his editor, Steinbeck wrote: “I was rather angry, but the poor fellow may have acted critically. I didn’t want to spoil a good dog for a (manuscript) that I’m not sure is any good.”
We’ll never know if the pages Toha destroyed would have been better than the masterpiece Steinbeck eventually published, but at least the story gives credence to the old “My dog ate my homework” excuse.
John Steinbeck’s Literary Life:
Steinbeck was a lifelong dog lover. Lui famously described his journey across the United States in the company of a standard poodle named Charley in his 1960 travelogue Travels with Charley.
Steinbeck’s original title for Of Mice and Men was Something That Happened, but he changed it after reading Robert Burns’ poem “To a Mouse”.
Of Mice and Men was often banned from public schools, due to the author’s frank depiction of racism in the 1930s, including racial slurs.
