"And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in all the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected." The author of twenty-seven books, including The Grapes of Wrath (1939), for which he won the Pulitzer Prize; East of Eden (1952); and the novella Of Mice and Men (1937) is seen here giving his acceptance speech at the Nobel Banquet in Stockholm on December 10, 1962.