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 Biography
Jack London's works were originally published in English. He was born in San Francisco in 1876. He began his working life early, while still a schoolboy. He sold newspapers, arranged pins in a bowling alley.
After school, he became a worker in a cannery. Labor was hard and poorly paid. Then he borrowed $ 300 and bought a small used schooner, becoming an oyster pirate. He caught oysters illegally and sold to local restaurants. Actually engaged in poaching. Many of Jack London's works are based on personal memories. So, working in a poaching flotilla, he became so famous for his courage and courage that he was accepted into a fishing patrol, which was just fighting against poachers. The stories of the fishing patrol are dedicated to this period of his life.
In 1893, London went fishing to the shores of Japan - to catch seals. This journey formed the basis of numerous stories by Jack London and the popular novel "Sea Wolf".
Then he worked in a jute factory, changed many professions - the stoker and even the ironer in the laundry room. The writer's memories of this period can be found in the novels John Barley Grain and Martin Eden.
In 1893, he managed to earn his first money as a writer. He received a prize from a San Francisco newspaper for his essay, Typhoon Off the Shores of Japan.
Marxist ideas
The following year, he participated in the famous campaign of the unemployed in Washington, was arrested for vagrancy, and spent several months in prison. The essay "Hold on!" Is dedicated 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 from 1901. He left the party in London 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 could not find gold, instead he fell ill with scurvy, but he received a lot of subjects 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 vent to his rich imagination, impressed readers with an original style and unexpected plot twists.
In 1905 he became interested in agriculture, settling on a ranch. He tried to create the perfect farm, but to no avail. 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 buys the idea from Sinclair Lewis. But she does not have time to finish the novel "Bureau of Murders". In 1916, the writer dies at 40.
According to the official version, the cause was poisoning with morphine, which was prescribed to him from a kidney disease. London suffered from uremia. But researchers are also considering a version of suicide.
Jack London Tales
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 combat with a sick wolf who lacked the strength to attack a person. Therefore, everyone waited for one of them to die first. At the end of the journey he was picked up by a whaling ship and taken to San Francisco.
"Journey to the" Dazzling "
Jack London wrote this story in 1902. It is devoted to the real fact of his biography - the illegal extraction of oysters.
It tells about a young guy who runs away from home. To earn money, he has to get on a ship of oyster pirates, which is called "Dazzling".
"White Fang"
Perhaps the most famous works of Jack London are devoted 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 a dog. The 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. He is developing rapidly, considering people cruel, but fair gods. At the same time, the rest of the dogs dislike him, especially when the main character becomes the main one in the sledding team.
One day, an Indian sells White Fang to Handsome Smith, who, by beatings, makes it clear who his new master is. He uses the main character in dog fights.
But in the very first battle, the bulldog almost kills him, only the engineer Widon Scott from the mine rescues the wolf. Jack London's White Fang story ends with the new owner bringing him to California. There he begins a new life.
Wolf Larsen
A couple of years before that, another famous Jack London novel, The Sea Wolf, was released. At the center of the story is a literary critic who sets off on a ferry to visit his friend and ends up in a shipwreck. He is saved by the ghost schooner, commanded by Wolf Larsen.
He swims into the Pacific Ocean to catch seals, all around amazes with his frantic disposition. The protagonist of the novel "Sea Wolf" by Jack London professes the philosophy of life ferment. 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 form of social Darwinism.
"To Adam"
In 1907, London wrote a very unusual story for himself, "To Adam." Its plot is based on the idea of human evolution that existed at that time.
The main character has an alter ego, which is a teenager living among cave monkey-like people. So the writer describes the Pithecanthropus.
In the story, they are opposed by a more developed tribe called the Fire People. This is an analogue of Neanderthals. They already use arrows and bow for hunting, while pithecanthropes (in the story they are called the Forest Horde) are at an earlier stage of development.
London science fiction
Jack London demonstrated the skill of science fiction writer in 1912 in the novel Scarlet Plague. 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 over the course of the 20th century, destructive viruses have threatened the world more than once. And when the "scarlet plague" came, everything was ruled by the Council of Magnates, social stratification in society reached its climax. A new disease broke out in 2013. It destroyed a large part of the world's population, because they simply did not manage to invent a vaccine. People were dying right on the streets, infecting each other.
Grandfather and associates managed to take refuge in a shelter. By this time, only a few hundred people remained on the planet who are forced to lead a primitive lifestyle.
"Moon Valley"
Jack London’s Moon Valley book appeared in 1913. The action of this work takes place at the very beginning of the XX century in California. Bill and Saxon meet in dance and soon realize that they are in love.
The newlyweds begin 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 in the factory, to which Bill also joins. Demands of workers - an increase in wages. But management hires strikebreakers instead. Between them and the factory employees are constantly clashing.
Once such a fight happens near the house of Saxon. Due to stress, she begins a premature birth. The child is dying. Hard times are coming for their family. Bill is fascinated by strikes, he drinks a lot and fights.
Because of this, he finds himself in the police, he is sentenced to a month in prison. Saxon is left alone - without a husband and money. She is starving, once she understands: in order to survive, they must leave this city. With this idea, she comes to her husband, who has changed a lot in prison, has rethought a lot. When Bill is released, they decide to farm, make money on it.
They embark 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, at last they find what they are looking for.
By coincidence, the area that came up to them is called the Moon Valley. They open their farm, things are going uphill. Bill discovers an entrepreneurial vein, it turns out he is a born businessman. Only his talent was deeply buried for a long time.
The novel ends with Saxon recognizing that she is expecting a baby again.
At Cape Horn
One of Jack London’s most fascinating novels is Rebel on Elsinore, written in 1914.
Events unfold on a sailing ship. The ship is sailing to Cape Horn. Suddenly, a captain dies aboard. After this, confusion begins on the ship, the team is divided into two warring camps. In each of them there is a leader who is ready to lead people along.
The main character is among the raging elements and rebellious sailors. All this makes him stop being an outside observer and begin to make complex and responsible decisions himself. Become a strong-willed and strong personality.