Jack London : an American life

Resource Information

The work Jack London : an American life represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in San Francisco Public Library. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Audio, Nonmusical, Sounds, Music.

Label

Jack London : an American life

Title remainder

an American life

Statement of responsibility

Earle Labor

Creator

• Labor, Earle, 1928-

Contributor

• hoopla digital
• Prichard, Michael

Subject

• Authors, American -- 20th century -- Biography
• London, Jack, 1876-1916
• London, Jack, 1876-1916 -- Criticism and interpretation
• Authors, American -- 19th century -- Biography

Genre

• Biography

Language

eng

Summary

Jack London was born a working class, fatherless Californian in 1876. In his youth, he was a boundlessly energetic adventurer on the bustling West Coast-an oyster pirate, a hobo, a sailor, and a prospector by turns. He spent his brief life rapidly accumulating the experiences that would inform his acclaimed bestselling books The Call of the Wild, White Fang, and The Sea-Wolf. The bare outlines of his story suggest a classic rags-to-riches tale, but London the man was plagued by contradictions. He chronicled nature at its most savage but wept helplessly at the deaths of his favorite animals. At his peak the highest paid writer in the United States, he was nevertheless forced to work under constant pressure for money. An irrepressibly optimistic crusader for social justice and a lover of humanity, he was also subject to spells of bitter invective, especially as his health declined. Branded by shortsighted critics as little more than a hack who produced a couple of memorable dog stories, he left behind a voluminous literary legacy, much of it ripe for rediscovery. In Jack London: An American Life, the noted Jack London scholar Earle Labor explores the brilliant and complicated novelist lost behind the myth-at once a hard-living globe-trotter and a man alive with ideas whose passion for seeking new worlds to explore never waned until the day he died. Returning London to his proper place in the American pantheon, Labor resurrects a major American novelist in his full fire and glory

Accompanying matter

technical information on music

Cataloging source

Midwest

Dewey number

818/.5/209

Form of composition

not applicable

Format of music

not applicable

Literary text for sound recordings

other

PerformerNote

Read by Michael Prichard

Target audience

adult

Transposition and arrangement

not applicable