All of us, I think, have had the experience of seeing someone else take credit for something we’ve done. But how many of us can say that our work was used by another person to earn a Nobel Prize?

The American novelist, poet, and editor Sanora Babb can, as Iris so brilliantly illuminates in her forthcoming biography, Riding Like the Wind. In Babb’s case, it was John Steinbeck who took credit for her work when — despite lacking her permission — he used her notes to write The Grapes of Wrath. His novel went on to win not only a National Book Award but also a Pulitzer Prize, and in addition to being turned into an Academy Award-winning film it would also eventually play a major role in Steinbeck’s being awarded th ...