Cover image for The portable Jack London / edited by Earle Labor.
The portable Jack London / edited by Earle Labor.
Title:
The portable Jack London / edited by Earle Labor.
Additional Author(s):
ISBN:
9780140179699
0140179690
Publication Info:
New York : Penguin Books, 1994.
Description:
xxxvii, 563 pages ; 20 cm.
Series:
Viking portable library.
Contents:
Stories: To the man on trail -- In a far country -- Law of life -- Relic of the pliocene -- Nam-Bok the unveracious -- To build a fire (1902) -- Moon-face -- Batard -- Love of life -- All gold canyon -- Apostate -- To build a fire (1908) -- Chinago -- Koolau the leper -- Good-bye Jack -- Mauki -- Strength of the strong -- Samuel -- Piece of steak -- Madness of John Harned -- Night-born -- War -- Told in the drooling ward -- Mexican -- Red one -- Water baby. The call of the wild.

Nonfiction: Typhoon off the coast of Japan -- On the writer's philosophy of life -- First aid to rising authors -- Review of Frank Norris's The octopus -- Excerpts from The people of the abyss -- How I became a socialist -- Getting into print -- Terrible and tragic in fiction -- What life means to me -- Things alive -- Story of an eye-witness -- Reports on the James J. Jeffries-Jack Johnson championship fight -- Classic of the sea -- Introduction to Cry for justice -- Eight factors of literary success.

Letters: to editor, San Francisco Bulletin ; to Mabel Applegarth ; to Anna Strunsky ; to Houghton, Mifflin & Co. ; to Cloudesley Johns ; to George P. Brett ; to Charmian Kittredge ; to Frederick L. Bamford ; to Cloudesley Johns ; to 'dear comrades' ; to S.S. McClure ; to George Sterling ; to editor, Editor magazine ; to Becky London ; to Richard W. Gilder ; to William E. Walling ; to editor, Hololulu advertiser ; to 'comrades of the Mexican Revolution' ; to Ethan A. Cross ; to Joseph Conrad ; to Ethelda Hesser ; to John R. Lindmark ; to Mary Austin ; to members of Local Glen Ellen, Socialist Labor Party ; to Leo B. Mihan ; to Waldo Frank.
Summary:
Alfred Kazin has aptly remarked that "the greatest story Jack London ever wrote was the story he lived." Newsboy, factory "work beast," gang member, hobo, sailor, Klondike argonaut, socialist crusader, war correspondent, utopian farmer, and world-famous adventurer: London is the closest thing America has had to a literary folk hero. His writing itself is concerned with nothing less than the largest questions and the grandest themes: What does it mean to be a human being in the natural world? What debts do human beings owe each other - and to all their fellow creatures? This collection places London, at last, securely within the American literary pantheon. It includes the complete novel The Call of the Wild; such famous stories as "Love of Life," "To Build a Fire," and "All Gold Canyon"; journalism, political writings, literary criticism, and selected letters.
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