The Collected Jack London: Thirty-six Stories, Four Complete Novels, a Memoir

Jack London

Dorset Press, 1991 - Fiction - 1061 pages

The North: To build a fire--An odyssey of the North--The white silence--The son of the wolf--To the man on trail--The wisdom of the trail--In a far country--Siwash--The God of his fathers--Where the trail forks--Housekeeping in the Klondike--A daughter of the aurora--The law of life--old men--Betard--Love of life--Which make men remember--The men of forty-mile--At the rainbow's end--The call of the wild--White fang--Through the rapids on the way to Klondike--From Dawson to the sea. The man: Martin Eden--John Barleycom--Two thousand stiffs--The brain merchant--Holding her down. The sea: The cruise of the Dazzler--The whale tooth--Mauld--Koolau the leper--The hseriff of Kona--The chinago--The house of Mapuhi--The seed of McCoy--Good-by, Jack--The bones of sea-farmer--Samuel--The sea-wolf--Story of a typhoon off the coast of Japan--THe run across--The inconceivable and monstrous--A Pacific traverse--The Sophie Sutherland--The dead men rise up never.

Contents

• To Build a Fire: 5
• An Odyssey of the North: 14
• The White Silence: 33

About the author

One of the pioneers of 20th century American literature, Jack London specialized in tales of adventure inspired by his own experiences. London was born in San Francisco in 1876. At 14, he quit school and became an "oyster pirate," robbing oyster beds to sell his booty to the bars and restaurants in Oakland. Later, he turned on his pirate associates and joined the local Fish Patrol, resulting in some hair-raising waterfront battles. Other youthful activities included sailing on a seal-hunting ship, traveling the United States as a railroad tramp, a jail term for vagrancy and a hazardous winter in the Klondike during the 1897 gold rush. Those experiences converted him to socialism, as he educated himself through prolific reading and began to write fiction. After a struggling apprenticeship, London hit literary paydirt by combining memories of his adventures with Darwinian and Spencerian evolutionary theory, the Nietzchean concept of the "superman" and a Kipling-influenced narrative style. "The Son of the Wolf"(1900) was his first popular success, followed by 'The Call of the Wild" (1903), "The Sea-Wolf" (1904) and "White Fang" (1906). He also wrote nonfiction, including reportage of the Russo-Japanese War and Mexican revolution, as well as "The Cruise of the Snark" (1911), an account of an eventful South Pacific sea voyage with his wife, Charmian, and a rather motley crew. London's body broke down prematurely from his rugged lifestyle and hard drinking, and he died of uremic poisoning - possibly helped along by a morphine overdose - at his California ranch in 1916. Though his massive output is uneven, his best works - particularly "The Call of the Wild" and "White Fang" - have endured because of their rich subject matter and vigorous prose.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Collected Jack London: Thirty-six Stories, Four Complete Novels, a Memoir
• Author: Jack London
• Editor: Steven J. Kasdin
• Publisher: Dorset Press, 1991
• ISBN: 0880295961, 9780880295963
• Length: 1061 pages
• Subjects: Fiction / Literary