Jack London
2 books analyzed
Biography
Jack London (1876-1916) was born illegitimate in San Francisco and grew up in poverty. He worked as a sailor, oyster pirate, and factory laborer before educating himself at public libraries. He traveled to the Klondike in 1897 during the Gold Rush — the same conditions that open the novel — and returned without gold but with the observational material for his most important work. He was a committed socialist who believed in the power of physical experience and considered himself a naturalist in the Darwinian tradition. He wrote The Call of the Wild in 1903, at thirty years old, in under a month. It was an immediate bestseller and remains the best-selling American adventure novel in history.
Jack London at a glance
Works
The Call of the Wild
1903 · 128 pages · ★☆☆☆☆ Accessible
A stolen dog unlearns civilization one brutal Yukon winter at a time — and becomes something older and truer than any master could own.
White Fang
1906 · 298 pages · ★★☆☆☆ Moderate
The reverse of The Call of the Wild — a wolf-dog's brutal journey from the frozen Yukon wilderness into the heart of human civilization.
Diction Across Works
naturalist-plain
plain-naturalist