Throughout his life John Steinbeck numbered artists among his most trusted friends. In California, in Pacific Grove and on Monterey's Cannery Row, the novelist's closest companions, in addition to the great marine biologist Ed Ricketts, included painters Judith Deim, Ellwood Graham, James Fitzgerald, Bruce Ariss and many others. This catalogue of essays and images looks at that period, tying in with the inaugural art exhibition in 1998 at the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas, California. ``This Side of Eden: Images of Steinbeck's California'' looks at the compassion of Steinbeck and dozens of artists for the exploited migrant field workers and the suddenly unemployed and destitute of the 1930s. Steinbeck and other writers used the pen, the artists used the brush. Artist Millard Sheets traveled with Steinbeck down agricultural valleys as the author conducted final interviews for ``The Grapes of Wrath.'' As Steinbeck interviewed the workers, Sheets made paintings of them.