Jack London

A classic novel of adventure, drawn from London's own experiences as a Klondike adventurer, relating the story of a heroic dog caught in the brutal life of the Alaska Gold Rush. Note.

A revelatory look at the life of the great American author—and how it shaped his most beloved works Jack London was born a working class, fatherless Californian in 1876. In his youth, he was a boundlessly energetic adventurer on the bustling West Coast—an oyster pirate, a hobo, a sailor, and a prospector by turns. He spent his brief life rapidly accumulating the experiences that would inform his acclaimed bestselling books The Call of theWild, White Fang, and The Sea-Wolf. The bare outlines of his story suggest a classic rags-to-riches tale, but London the man was plagued by contradictions. He chronicled nature at its most savage, but wept helplessly at the deaths of his favorite animals. At his peak the highest paid writer in the United States, he was nevertheless forced to work under constant pressure for money. An irrepressibly optimistic crusader for social justice and a lover of humanity, he was also subject to spells of bitter invective, especially as his health declined. Branded by shortsighted critics as little more than a hack who produced a couple of memorable dog stories, he left behind a voluminous literary legacy, much of it ripe for rediscovery. In Jack London: An American Life, the noted Jack London scholar Earle Labor explores the brilliant and complicated novelist lost behind the myth—at once a hard-living globe-trotter and a man alive with ideas, whose passion for seeking new worlds to explore never waned until the day he died. Returning London to his proper place in the American pantheon, Labor resurrects a major American novelist in his full fire and glory.

Raised in poverty as an illegitimate child, Jack London dropped out of school to support his mother, working in mind-deadening jobs that would foster a lifelong interest in socialism. Brilliant and self-taught, he haunted California's waterside bars, brawling with drunken sailors and learning about love from prostitutes. His lust for adventure took him from the beaches of Hawaii to the gold fields of Alaska, where he experienced firsthand the struggles for survival he would later immortalize in classics like White Fang and The Call of the Wild. A hard-drinking womanizer with children to support, Jack London was no stranger to passion when he met and married Charmian Kittredge, the love of his life. Despite his adventurous past, London had never before met a woman like Charmian; she adored fornication and boxing, and willingly risked life and limb to sail and explore. She typed his manuscripts while he churned out novels, serving as his inspiration and his critic. Lover, fighter, and onetime hobo, Jack London lived large and died before he was forty. This is a rare biography, from bestselling historian Alex Kershaw, that proves the truth can be more fascinating--and a far greater adventure--than a fiction.

Contains The Call of the Wild, White Fang, The Sea-Wolf, and 40 short stories all by Jack London.

Several years after Jack London’s death, his wife Charmian released a 2-volume biography of his life. Volume I starts with the origins of his parents, John and Flora, and covers Jack’s childhood and early life growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area. It also covers his oyster pirating, Klondike trips, and time spent riding the railroads. The book is full of his letters to Cloudesley Johns, Anna Strunsky, and others. The first volume ends with his voyage to Asia to cover the Japanese-Russian War. Volume II starts with his return from Korea after war-reporting and his divorce from his first wife. It covers their trip on the Snark and trips to New York and around Cape Horn. The 'bad year' when his house burns is described in detail, as is a return to Hawaii and the start of World War I. The volume ends with Jack's death in 1916.

'The Call of the Wild' is the story of Buck, a domestic dog stolen, sold as a sled dog and forced to endure the brutal work and competition with the other dogs to be leader of the pack. 'White Fang' presents a similar story but in reverse as a wild wolf-dog mix is domesticated but faces great cruelty before finding a master.

-A middle grade biography of Jack London that sheds light on how he drew upon adventure and life experience to create works of literature---

The world knows Jack London as awriter who lived his own thrilling,real-life adventures. But there areparts of his life that have remainedhidden for many years, things even he couldn’tset down in writing. Terrifying, mysterious,bizarre, and magical —these are the SecretJourneys of Jack London. We meet Jack at age seventeen, followingthousands of men and women into the YukonTerritory in search of gold. For Jack, the journeyholds the promise of another kind of fortune:challenge and adventure. But what he finds inthe wild north is something far more sinisterthan he could have ever imagined: kidnappingand slavery, the murderous nature of desperatemen, and, amidst it all, supernatural beasts ofthe wilderness that prey upon the weakness inmen’s hearts. Jack’s survival will depend on hisability to quell the demons within himself asmuch as those without. Acclaimed authors Christopher Goldenand Tim Lebbon, along with illustrator GregRuth, have crafted a masterful tale bothclassic and contemporary, a gripping originalstory of the paranormal in the tradition ofthe great Jack London.