Edward Flanders Robb Ricketts, known by many simply as Ed Ricketts, was an American marine biologist, ecologist, and philosopher. He is best known for the publication Between Pacific Tides (1939), a pioneering study of intertidal ecology, and for his friendship with writer John Steinbeck, which resulted in their collaboration on the Sea of Cortez, later republished as The Log from the Sea of Cortez (1951). Steinbeck based the character “Doc” in his novel “Cannery Row” on Ed Ricketts.

Finding Edward Flanders Robb Ricketts began as a project to identify and present online as a list those books, both personal and scientific that comprised the library of Edward Flanders Robb Ricketts. The project was broadened to include those items of E. F. Ricketts that would provide a greater appreciation of the level of effort associated with his philosophical and scientific works. These items include his bibliographic card catalog that cross references his scientific reprint collection, and his collection cards that identified the marine animals that he collected, as well as the date and location of their collection. The project was broadened further to identify and present as a list, the artists and art, composers, musicians and poets that comprised the interests of E. F. Ricketts at one time or another during the course of his life. The purpose of the “Finding Edward Flanders Robb Ricketts” project is to spur a renewed interest among, researchers, historians and the general public about the life and times of California’s most renowned marine biologist who never acquired a college degree.

Finding Edward Flanders Robb Ricketts can be viewed online at the following website:

http://edricketts.stanford.edu/

-- Don Kohrs, Hopkins Marine Station