Jack London's works: novels, novellas and short stories

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Jack London's works have been and remain extremely popular all over the world. He is the author of numerous adventure novels and short stories. It is worth noting that in the USSR he was the most published foreign author after the storyteller Andersen. The total circulation of his books in the Soviet Union alone amounted to more than 77 million copies.

Writer's biography

Jack London's works were originally published in English. He was born in San Francisco in 1876. Early began his working life, while still a schoolboy. He sold newspapers, set up skittles in the bowling alley.

After school, he became a worker at a cannery. The work was hard and poorly paid. Then he borrowed $300 and bought a small used schooner, becoming an oyster pirate. He fished oysters illegally and sold them to local restaurants. In fact, he was engaged in poaching. Many of Jack London's works are based on personal memories. So, while working in a poaching flotilla, he became so famous for his courage and courage that he was accepted into the fishing patrol, which was just fighting against poachers. "Tales of the Fishing Patrol" are dedicated to this period of his life.

In 1893, London went to fish forshores of Japan - to catch seals. This journey formed the basis of numerous stories by Jack London and the popular novel "The Sea Wolf".

Then he worked at a jute factory, changed many professions - a fireman and even an ironer in a laundry. The writer's memories of this period can be found in the novels "John Barleycorn" and "Martin Eden".

In 1893 he managed to earn his first money by writing. He received an award from a San Francisco newspaper for his essay "Typhoon off the coast of Japan".

Marxist ideas

The following year, he took part in the famous campaign of the unemployed on Washington, was arrested for vagrancy and spent several months in prison. The essay "Hold on!" is devoted to this. and the novel Straitjacket.

At that time he became acquainted with Marxist ideas and became a convinced socialist. He was a member of the Socialist Party of America either from 1900 or 1901. He left the London party after a decade and a half, due to the fact that the movement lost its morale, heading for gradual reforms.

In 1897, London left for Alaska, succumbing to the gold rush. He failed to find gold, instead he fell ill with scurvy, but he received a lot of plots for his stories, which brought him fame and popularity.

Jack London has worked in all sorts of genres. He even wrote science fiction and utopian stories. In them, he gave free rein to his rich imagination, amazed readers with an original style.and unexpected plot twists.

In 1905, he became interested in agriculture, settling on a ranch. Tried to create the perfect farm, but without success. As a result, he got into big debts.

In the last years of his life, the writer had a creative crisis, he began to abuse alcohol. Decides to write detective novels, even buying an idea from Sinclair Lewis. But he does not have time to finish the novel "The Murder Bureau". In 1916, the writer dies at the age of 40.

According to the official version, the cause was morphine poisoning, which was prescribed to him for a kidney disease. London suffered from uremia. But researchers are also considering a version of suicide.

Jack London Stories

The stories brought great popularity to the writer. One of the most famous is called "Love of Life".

Events take place in Alaska during the gold rush. The main character was betrayed by a comrade and thrown to the snowy desert. He heads south to save himself. He gets a leg injury, loses his hat and gun, meets a bear, and even engages in single combat with a sick wolf, which did not have enough strength to attack a person. So everyone was waiting to see which one of them would die first. At the end of the journey, he was picked up by a whaling ship and taken to San Francisco.

Journey on the Dazzling

This story was written by Jack London in 1902. It is dedicated to the real fact of his biography - illegal oyster mining.

It is about a young boy who runs away from home. To make moneyhe has to take a job on the Oyster Pirates' ship called the Dazzling.

White Fang

Perhaps the most famous works of Jack London are dedicated to the gold rush. The story "White Fang" also belongs to them. It was printed in 1906.

In the story "White Fang" by Jack London, the main character is a wolf. His father is a purebred wolf and his mother is half-dog. The wolf cub is the only one surviving from the entire brood. And when he meets people with his mother, she recognizes her old master.

White Fang settles among the Indians. It develops rapidly, regarding humans as cruel but just gods. At the same time, the rest of the dogs treat him with hostility, especially when the main character becomes the main character in the sledding team.

One day, an Indian sells White Fang to Handsome Smith, who beats him up to figure out who his new owner is. He uses the main character in dog fights.

But in the first fight the bulldog almost kills him, only the engineer Weedon Scott from the mine saves the wolf. Jack London's story "White Fang" ends with the fact that the new owner brings him to California. There he begins a new life.

Wolf Larsen

A couple of years before that, another well-known novel by Jack London, The Sea Wolf, was released. In the center of the story is a literary critic who goes on a ferry to visit his friend and gets into a shipwreck. He is rescued by a schooner"Ghost" commanded by Wolf Larsen.

He swims in the Pacific Ocean to catch seals, he amazes everyone around with his mad disposition. The protagonist of the novel "The Sea Wolf" by Jack London professes the philosophy of vital leaven. He believes: the more leaven in a person, the more actively he fights for his place under the sun. As a result, something can be achieved. This approach is a kind of social Darwinism.

Before Adam

In 1907, London writes a very unusual story for himself "Before Adam". Its plot is based on the concept of human evolution that existed at the time.

The protagonist has an alter ego who is a teenager living among cave ape people. This is how the writer describes Pithecanthropes.

In the story, they are opposed by a more advanced tribe, which is called the People of Fire. This is similar to the Neanderthals. They already use an arrow and a bow for hunting, while the Pithecanthropes (in the story they are called the Forest Horde) are at an earlier stage of development.

Fantastic London

The skill of a science fiction writer Jack London demonstrated in 1912 in the novel "The Scarlet Plague". The events in it take place in 2073. 60 years ago, a sudden epidemic on Earth destroyed almost all of humanity. The action takes place in San Francisco, where an old man who remembers the world before the deadly epidemic tells his grandchildren about it.

He says that throughout the 20th century the world was threatened more than oncedestructive viruses. And when the "scarlet plague" came, the Council of Magnates controlled everything, social stratification in society reached its climax. A new disease broke out in 2013. She destroyed most of the world's population, because they simply did not have time to invent a vaccine. People were dying right on the streets, infecting each other.

Grandfather and his comrades-in-arms managed to escape to the shelter. By this time, only a few hundred people remained on the entire planet who are forced to lead a primitive lifestyle.

Moon Valley

The book "Moon Valley" by Jack London appeared in 1913. The action of this work takes place at the very beginning of the 20th century in California. Bill and Saxon meet at a dance and soon find themselves in love.

The newlyweds start a happy life in a new house. Saxon does housework, she soon finds out that she is pregnant. Their happiness is overshadowed only by a strike at the factory, to which Bill joins. The demands of the workers - an increase in wages. But management hires scabs instead. There are constant skirmishes between them and the factory employees.

One day such a fight happens near Saxon's house. Due to stress, she begins premature birth. The child is dying. Times are tough for their family. Bill is passionate about strikes, he drinks a lot and fights.

Because of this, he ends up in the police, he is sentenced to a month in prison. Saxon is left alone - without a husband and money. She is starving, one day she realizes that in order to survive, they need to leave thiscities. With this idea, she comes to her husband, who has changed a lot in prison, rethought a lot. When Bill is released, they decide to start farming to make money.

They set off on a journey in search of the perfect site to start their business. What it should be, they clearly represent. They meet people, many of whom become their friends. They jokingly call their dream "Moon Valley". In their view, the land that the main characters dream of can only be on the moon. So two years pass, finally they find what they were looking for.

Coincidentally, the area that suits them is called Moon Valley. They open their own farm, things are going uphill. Bill discovers an entrepreneurial vein in himself, it turns out that he is a born businessman. Only his talent was buried deep for a long time.

The novel ends with Saxon admitting that she is pregnant again.

At Cape Horn

One of Jack London's most fascinating novels is The Mutiny on the Elsinore. It was written in 1914.

Events unfold on a sailing ship. The ship sails to Cape Horn. Suddenly, the captain dies on board. After that, confusion begins on the ship, the team is divided into two opposing camps. Each of them has a leader who is ready to lead people.

The main character is among the raging elements and rebellious sailors. All this makes him stop being an outside observer and begin to take on complex and responsible decisions himself.solutions. Become a strong-willed and strong personality.