Summary
Jack London is an American original, a self-taught writer whose life was almost as interesting as his fiction. He is best known for his tales of adventure in the North, such as The Call of the Wild and White Fang, but his literary achievement encompasses much more, from the autobiographical masterpiece Martin Eden to short fiction set everywhere from the Arctic Circle to the South Seas. He is one of the few writers both beloved by students and admired by scholars.
Critical Companion to Jack London is a comprehensive reference to the life and works of this prolific author as well as some of the themes that can be found in his writing.
Coverage includes:
- A concise but thorough biography of London
- Entries on all of London's major works, including novels such as The Call of the Wild, White Fang, Martin Eden, The Iron Heel, and The Sea-Wolf; stories such as "To Build a Fire," "An Odyssey of the North," and "The Law of Life"; essays, travel books, and other works of nonfiction; and much more. Each entry on a fictional work contains subentries on the work's main characters
- Entries on related people, places, and topics, such as Joseph Conrad, dystopian fiction, Manifest Destiny, wolves, and the Yukon Territory
- Appendixes, including a chronology, a bibliography of London's works, and a secondary-source bibliography.
Specifications
Black-and-white photographs and illustrations. Index. Appendix. Bibliographies. Cross-references. Chronology.
About the Author(s)
Jeanne Campbell Reesman is a professor of English at the University of Texas at San Antonio and one of the world's leading Jack London scholars. She is the author of several books, including Jack London's Racial Lives, Jack London: A Study of the Short Fiction, Trickster Lives: Culture and Myth in American Fiction, and American Designs: The Late Novels of James and Faulkner. She is the coauthor or editor of A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature, Approaches to Teaching Jack London, Jack London: One Hundred Years a Writer, and Jack London, Photographer, among others. She is also a volume editor of The Norton Anthology of American Literature, 7th Edition.