Read complete books and articles on: Jack London

London, Jack - (John Griffith London), 1876–1916, American author, b. San Francisco. The illegitimate son of an astrologer and a Welsh farm girl, he had a poverty-stricken childhood, brought up by his mother and her husband, John London. At 17, Jack London shipped as an able seaman to Japan and the Bering Sea. He was an oyster pirate, a gold-seeker in the first Klondike rush, a newspaper correspondent during the Russo-Japanese War, and in 1914 a war correspondent in Mexico. His stories, romantic adventures with realistic setting and character, began to appear first in the Overland Monthly. In 1900, The Son of the Wolf: Tales of the Far North was published. London's Klondike tales are exciting, vigorous, and brutal. The Call of the Wild (1903), about a tame dog who eventually leads a wolf pack, is one of the best animal stories ever written. Among his other works are The Sea-Wolf (1904), White Fang (1905), and Smoke Bellew (1912). Martin Eden (1909) and Burning Daylight (1910) are partly autobiographical. Although he was a highly paid writer of extremely popular fiction, London, a socialist, considered his social tracts—The People of the Abyss (1903) and The Iron Heel (1907)—as his most important work. The Cruise of the Snark (1911) is a vivid account of his interrupted voyage around the world in a 50-ft (15.2-m) ketch-rigged yacht, and John Barleycorn; or, Alcoholic Memoirs (1913) is autobiographical. Beset in his later years by alcoholism and financial difficulties, London committed suicide at the age of 40.

See Charmian London (his second wife), The Log of the Snark (1915), Our Hawaii (1917), and The Book of Jack London (2 vol., 1921); biographies by his daughter, Joan London (1969), and by J. Hedrick (1982), A. Sinclair (1983), C. Stasz (1988), and A. Kershaw (1998); studies by E. Labor (1977) and C. Watson (1982).

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13 of the Best Books and Articles on: Jack London

as selected by Questia librarians

1.

The Critical Response to Jack London » Read Now
by Susan M. Nuernberg. 298 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

Essays and reviews document the critical response to Jack London's writings from the turn of the century to the present day.
2.

The Call of the Wild, White Fang, and Other Stories » Read Now
by Jack London, Earle Labor, Robert C. Leitz III. 368 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

'It was true, there were other dogs. There could not but be other dogs on so vast a place, but they did not count.' Buck, the magnificent offspring of a St Bernard and Scotch shepherd dog, lives contentedly on a California estate until he is stolen and shipped northwards to be trained as a sledge...
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'It was true, there were other dogs. There could not but be other dogs on so vast a place, but they did not count.' Buck, the magnificent offspring of a St Bernard and Scotch shepherd dog, lives contentedly on a California estate until he is stolen and shipped northwards to be trained as a sledge dog. Uprooted from the civilized world, he is thrown into the cruel and savage struggle of the Klondike gold rush. The story of his heroic adventures and his response to the 'call of the wild' has not only excited readers but also struck a deeper, mythic chord. Of all Jack London's fictions none has been so popular as his dog stories. Included in this selection is the companion novel to The Call of the Wild, White Fang, and five famous short stories: 'Batard', 'Moon-Face', 'Brown Wolf', 'That Spot', and 'To Build a Fire', all with canine themes. * Introduction * Textual Note * Bibliography * Chronology * Explanatory Notes * Map.
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3.

Understanding the Call of the Wild: A Student Casebook to Issues, Sources, and Historical Documents » Read Now
by Claudia Durst Johnson. 268 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

London's adventure tale The Call of the Wild explores the complex relationships between man and nature, and animals' struggle with their own nature in man's world. In this interdisciplinary study, a rich collection of primary documents point out the many issues that make this story as poignant and...
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London's adventure tale The Call of the Wild explores the complex relationships between man and nature, and animals' struggle with their own nature in man's world. In this interdisciplinary study, a rich collection of primary documents point out the many issues that make this story as poignant and pertinent today as when it was written nearly a century ago. Compiled here for the first time is documentation from sources as varied as century-old newspaper accounts, legislative materials, advertisements, poetry, journals, and other startling firsthand accounts. The story's historical setting, the Yukon Gold Rush, is brought vividly into focus for readers, with firsthand accounts of the unimaginable hardships faced by the prospectors in the Klondike and Alaskan Gold Fields.
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4.

The Sea-Wolf » Read Now
by Jack London. 252 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

...A BANTAM PATHFINDER EDITION JACK LONDON was born in the slums of San...quality paper. THE SEA WOLF BY JACK LONDON With an Introduction by Lewis...Books, Inc. Copyright...
5.

John Barleycorn: Alcoholic Memoirs » Read Now
by Jack London. 240 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

Published in 1913, this harrowing, autobiographical 'A to Z' of drinking shattered London's reputation as a clean-living adventurer and massively successful author of such books as White Fang and The Call of the Wild.
6.

The Abysmal Brute » Read Now
by Jack London. 170 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library
7.

Jack London's Strong Truths » Read Now
by James I. McClintock. 226 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

...JACK LONDONS STRONG TRUTHS JACK LONDONS STRONG TRUTHS by James I. McClintock Michigan State...rights reserved Originally published in 1975 as White Logic: Jack Londons...
8.

Male Call: Becoming Jack London » Read Now
by Jonathan Auerbach. 289 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

...Ernest James Cross for use on Jack Londons bookplates. Courtesy of I. Milo...book . MALE CALL BECOMING JACK LONDON Jonathan Auerbach Duke University...deliver a...
9.

Solitary Comrade, Jack London and His Work » Read Now
by Joan D. Hedrick. 265 pgs.

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10.

Sea-Brothers: The Tradition of American Sea Fiction from Moby-Dick to the Present (Chap. 6 "Jack London in the Tradition of American Sea Fiction") » Read Now
by Bert Bender. 270 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library
11.

Utopianism and Radicalism in a Reforming America, 1888-1918 (Chap. 4 "Socialism and Its Discontents: London's The Iron Heel and Reader Response") » Read Now
by Francis Robert Shor. 224 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

Utopianism and radicalism achieve greater prominence when economic and social crises render the dominant moral and political universe open to question. The essays in this book examine how utopianism and radicalism informed the literary expressions, political discourse, communal experiments, and...
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Utopianism and radicalism achieve greater prominence when economic and social crises render the dominant moral and political universe open to question. The essays in this book examine how utopianism and radicalism informed the literary expressions, political discourse, communal experiments, and cultural projects in the U.S. from 1888 to 1918. In particular, these essays track how socialism, anarchism, syndicalism, feminism, and black nationalism contested the ideological terrain during a period when reform ideas and movements were beginning to reshape that terrain. The degree to which utopianism and radicalism were involved in that reformulation, either in its expanse or its constraint, is of prime interest throughout the book. Teachers and students interested in utopian studies, American studies, and the cultural/intellectual history of the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era will find this book highly useful.
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12.

Imaginary Communities: Utopia, the Nation, and the Spatial Histories of Modernity (Chap. Four "The Occluded Future Red Star and The Iron Heel as 'Critical Utopias'") » Read Now
by Phillip E. Wegner. 297 pgs.

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""Imaginary Communities is a beautiful treatment of utopian narratives as the quintessential genre for figuring social space in the modern nation-state. Wegner demonstrates a wide-ranging yet lighthanded philosophical learnedness, an urgent political conscience, and a deeply historical sense that...
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""Imaginary Communities is a beautiful treatment of utopian narratives as the quintessential genre for figuring social space in the modern nation-state. Wegner demonstrates a wide-ranging yet lighthanded philosophical learnedness, an urgent political conscience, and a deeply historical sense that narrative utopias are like specters that haunt particular moments of upheaval, crisis, and contradiction within modernity: whether the threshold between the vestiges of feudal agrarian society and early modern English capitalism, conflicts between the new oligarchy of industrializing late 19th c. United States and the increasing militancy of the labor movement, the uneven successes and failures of the Russian Revolution of 1905, or the mid-century Cold War struggles."--Lisa Lowe, author of "Immigrant Acts: On Asian American Cultural Politics
"In this important book, Wegner argues that the historical work done by utopian narratives should be reconsidered, interrogated, challenged--and continued. Insightful and provocative, "Imaginary Communities will prove a valuable contribution to our thinking about the politics of imagination."--Daniel Cottom, author of "Cannibals and Philosophers: Bodies of Enlightenment
"Phillip Wegner's "Imaginary Communities represents a major intervention in our understanding not merely of utopian literature, but the very ways in which we view our world. His concept of utopian narrative as both vision and practice, as participating in "real" worlds, a force for change rooted in the social world "as it is" and as it is becoming and is "imagined," succeeds wonderfully well; his notion of the imperative of "failure" as a resource of hope is deeply humane. He provides abody of work worth thinking through and thinking with. As a historian, I find the historicity of his approach, the literary arch spanning from the origins of the European nation-state to our global present and future, compel
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13.

"No Ties except Those of Blood": Class, Race, and Jack London's American Plague, in Papers on Language & Literature » Read Now
by David Raney. 40 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library