Jack London
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Jack London gained his first and most lasting fame as the author of tales of the Klondike gold rush. This, his first collection of stories, draws on his experience in the Yukon. The stories tell of gambles won and lost, of endurance and sacrifice, and often turn on the qualities of exceptional women and on the relations between the white adventurers and the native tribes. Stories included are: - The White Silence- The Son of the Wolf - The Men of...
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English
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Elam Harnish has more money than he would ever need. As he accumulates wealth as a successful entrepreneur in the Alaskan Gold Rush, Harnish must face the challenges of the Yukon Territory. After he makes a fortune, Harnish finds himself still unsatisfied. In efforts to find a new challenge and make more money, Harnish decides to move down to the mainland of America, settling in California. However, after a group of money kings threaten to take his...
3) The Game
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English
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"The Game" is a 1905 novel by Jack London that tells the story of Joe, a twenty-year-old man who participates in boxing matches to make some extra money for his family. Engaged to be married, he resolves to give up his pugilistic career, but only after one last match-a match that would be his last whether he wanted it to be or not. The story is told from the point of view of his fiancé, Genevieve. John Griffith London (1876 – 1916), commonly known...
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Love of Life and Other Stories (1906) is a collection of short stories by American writer Jack London. Containing eight stories by the author, a master of literary Naturalism and an experienced outdoorsman and adventurer, Love of Life and Other Stories explores the experience of humanity on the edge of civilization. Set mostly in Canada and Alaska, these stories follow characters for whom survival is a constant struggle, for whom death is as familiar...
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English
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Jack London was born into abject poverty in the slums of San Francisco during the winter of 1876. His writing was to reflect the hard life he lived, perpetually chronicling men facing the wild as he did throughout his life. After his eighth grade year, poverty forced London to leave school. This did not stop him, as he furthered his literary knowledge and skill at the Oakland Public Library, borrowing books and educating himself. London faced great...
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Though best known for the novel The Call of the Wild, American author and activist Jack London was also a prolific short story writer. The Faith of Men is a tale packed with twists and turns that follows two wealthy friends as they navigate the challenges of love, life, and the great outdoors.
7) The sea wolf
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English
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A thrilling epic of a sea voyage and a complex novel of ideas. The Sea Wolf is a standard-bearer of its genre. The vivid story of a gentleman scholar's rescue and subsequent ordeal at the hands of a hunting schooner's brutal captain and devious crew. It remains one of Jack London's finest achievements.
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English
Appears on these lists
Animal-Themed Books for Older Readers
Classics - St. Charles Public Library
Cozy Winter Reads (WPL-ADULT)
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Classics - St. Charles Public Library
Cozy Winter Reads (WPL-ADULT)
More Lists...
Description
"The Call of the Wild is a novel by Jack London published in 1903. The story is set in the Yukon during the 1890s Klondike Gold Rush--a period when strong sled dogs were in high demand. The novel's central character is a dog named Buck, a domesticated dog living at a ranch in the Santa Clara valley of California as the story opens. Stolen from his home and sold into the brutal existence of an Alaskan sled dog, he reverts to atavistic traits. Buck...
9) White Fang
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Explore the dangerous and ruthless animal world--and the equally violent human one--in this Scribner Classics keepsake edition of Jack London's renowned wolf tale. White Fang is part dog, part wolf, and all brute, fighting to survive in the frozen north. But when he gradually comes under the spell of man's companionship during the Klondike gold rush in the nineteenth century, how much will he surrender? This collectible edition of a revered classic,...
10) Martin Eden
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English
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The semiautobiographical story of an impoverished seaman who pursues, obsessively and aggressively, dreams of education and literary fame.
11) South Sea tales
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English
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Featuring eight works of short fiction, South Sea Tales by Jack London is an adventurous collection with a nautical theme. With settings on islands or ships, South Sea Tales tell the exciting, but often heartbreaking tales of violence, colonialism, and racism. The House of Mapuhi follows the son of a trading magnate, who travels from island to island buying valuable items for his mother's business. When he learns of a brilliant pearl owned by one...
12) John Barleycorn
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Wrestling with the disease of alcoholism for most of his life, Jack London tells all in his autobiography John Barleycorn. Beginning with a discussion of the prohibition movement and its effects, London explores the ways that alcohol affects daily life in the Victorian era. Because there were not many forms of affordable entertainment or reliable communication, bars were the perfect spot for social activity. People were able to sit and drink, enjoying...
13) The iron heel
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"Set in the future, “The Iron Heel” describes a world in which the division between the classes has deepened, creating a powerful Oligarchy that retains control through terror. A manuscript by rebel Avis Everhard is recovered in an even more distant future, and analyzed by scholar Anthony Meredith. Published in 1908, Jack London's multi-layered narrative is an early example of the dystopian novel, and its vision of the future proved to be eerily...
14) Before Adam
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With dramatic and detailed first person narration, Jack London's Before Adam follows the dreams of a young boy who has a genetically imprinted memory and knowledge of an ancestor who lived in prehistoric times. Big Tooth is a pre-human ape and is the protagonist of the young boy's dreams. He lives in a tribe that rests in the middle of two extremes. In the surrounding area, there are tribes of differing levels of development. One is primitive and...
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The People of the Abyss (1903) is a work of nonfiction by American writer Jack London. Written after the author spent three months living in London's poverty-stricken East End, The People of the Abyss bears witness to the difficulties faced by hundreds and thousands of people every day in one of the wealthiest nations on earth. Inspired by Friedrich Engels's The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845) and Jacob Riis's How the Other Half Lives,...
16) Smoke Bellew
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English
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From the author of the classic novel Call of the Wild, Jack London's Smoke Bellew features a vivacious depiction of a gold rush adventure. Christopher Bellew, more commonly known as Kit, lives a comfortable life in San Francisco. He writes daily for a paper and his inherited wealth promises to keep him well-off for a long while. Still, Kit cannot help but feel complacent. As a young man, he has not completely figured out what he really wants in life....
17) Adventure
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This antiquarian book contains Jack London's 1911 novel, "Adventure". It tells the story of the relationship between a man who finds himself harassed by a group of cannibals on a plantation and a fierce, independent, and liberated woman who arrives at the plantation and changes everything. It is a hard-hitting exploration of slavery and colonialism set on the Solomon Islands, and was the cause of much controversy. An interesting and thought-provoking...
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The Call Of The Wild is the story of Buck, a dog stolen from his home and thrust into the merciless life of the Arctic north to endure hardship, bitter cold, and the savage lawlessness of man and beast. White Fang is the adventure of an animal -- part dog, part wolf -- turned vicious by cruel abuse, then transformed by the patience and affection of one man.
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This collection of short stories shows the adventures and misadventures of the "children" alluded in the title: members of several Native-American tribes of the Canadian Arctic, Alaska and the Pacific Northwest at the turn of the XXth Century, on the backdrop of the Klondike Gold Rush amidst a harsh, unforgiving, Darwinian (red in tooth and claw indeed) Nature. The inevitable clash of civilisations brought by the coming of the gold-seeking "Sunlanders"...
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"Tales of the Fish Patrol" is a collection of seven short stories written by Jack London. Based on his own experiences, London harks back at his teenager years spent aboard various fishing boats in San Francisco Bay during the early 1900s. At the time, the waters contained rich oyster beds, and people of all ages and creeds descended upon them for profit. Jack was one of these oyster pirates, but later had a change of conscience and become a member...