Londonjackbooks

“ As book after book came out, the public grew to know and recognize Jack London as one of the strongest figures in American fiction.
He passed away on November 22, 1916, in the full swing of his intellectual vigor, and it will be long before his splendid achievement is forgotten, or the last of his books is consigned to the high shelves that spell oblivion. No matter how sparing one may be in the use of the word genius, for him it could be claimed. His name is one of the few among those of the writing men of our time with which the magic word is, without hesitation, to be linked. ”

“ During my long stay in Oakland, I had ample opportunity to get intimately acquainted with both Jack and Mrs. London; indeed, we were all like one big happy family. Fame and popularity have not spoiled them. Jack is just like a big schoolboy, good-natured, frank, generous, and Mrs. London is just a grown-up schoolgirl. They are good comrades, always helping each other in their work. Mrs. London I found to be as full of grit as any of us—as we were later to discover, there was hardly a thing on board that any of the men could do that she couldn't do ”

“ But it is quite probable that the man who does see half the world or all of it, for that matter, will sit down to write with a sub-conscious mind overflowing into note books, will in the actual labor of composition command a style of more than ordinary vigor. Jack London died at forty-one, at an age when many men are just starting out to test the broadening effects of travel. Seventeen years before his stories had begun to appear in print, and even at this time, he was drawing upon personal experiences and first-hand knowledge for the raw material which goes into stories. ”

“ More than seventeen years ago, in May 1899, Jack London's first story, "A Thousand Deaths," was published in The Black Cat. Doubtless many of our readers are already familiar with the facts concerning its publication as they are here set forth.
In Martin Eden, the book which more than any other of his is autobiography, London tells the old story, of an author's struggle for recognition. Martin Eden is about to go back to coal heaving, despairing of fame as a writer, when a letter from "The White Mouse" informs him of the acceptance of his story, "The Whirlpool." ”

“ Jack London received his early education at the public schools of Oakland and helped to increase the family income by selling newspapers after school hours. Later he engaged in salmon-fishing, oyster-pirating, schooner-sailing, and other precarious and adventurous enterprises on San Francisco Bay. At the age of sixteen he shipped before the mast on a sailing-vessel, and in 1893 he made a voyage to Japan and went seal-hunting in the Behring Sea. In 1894 he tramped through the United States and Canada, leading the life of a “hobo” and gathering sociological data at first hand. ”

“ Jack London, born in California in 1876, was forced to find his West in Alaska—and in alcohol. He was what he and his followers liked to call the virile or red-blooded type, responsive to the "Call of the Wild," "living life naked and tensely." In his talk Jack London was simple and boyish, with plenty of humor over his own literary and social foibles. His books are very uneven, but he wrote many a hard-muscled, clean-cut page. If the Bret Harte theory of the West was that each man is at 244 bottom a sentimentalist, Jack London's formula was that at bottom every man is a brute. ”

“ This evening when the boy brings the
skins, I shall be pleased to give him, in an envelope, for you, a
tangible return for your musical composition.
"Please put the price on each skin, and also let me know for what sum
all the skins will sell together.
"Sincerely yours,
"JACK LONDON."
Now, thought I, I have him. No skins, no tangible return; and evidently he is set on receiving that tangible return.
At seven o'clock Eliceo was back, but without leopard skins. ”

“ But Jack London was a man with a magnificent mind, and a giant’s will. He fought tremendous battles in his own soul—battles in despite of his own false philosophy, battles which he was fighting even while he was quarreling at other men’s self-restraint. ”

“ Wherever civilised men congregated, wherever books were read, the name of Jack London was familiar.
Why he was making this trip in so tiny a craft? That question he answered shortly afterward, when he wrote: "Life that lives is life successful, and success is the breath of its nostrils. The achievement of a difficult feat is successful adjustment to a sternly exacting environment. The more difficult the feat, the greater the satisfaction at its accomplishment. That is why I am building the Snark. I am so made. The trip around the world means big moments of living. ”

“ And Skysail Jack and I peered and knew each other under the wreckage.
Men such as he are privileged, even in a prison, so that he dared an infraction of the rules by speaking to me in a cracked and quavering voice.
"You're a good one, Standing," he cackled. "You never squealed."
"But I never knew, Jack," I whispered back—I was compelled to whisper, for five years of disuse had well nigh lost me my voice. "I don't think there ever was any dynamite." ”

“ I was saved by The Black Cat short story.
"To many a writer with a national reputation The Black Cat has been the stepping stone. The marvelous, unthinkable thing Mr. Umbstaetter did, was to judge a story on its merits and to pay for it on its merits. Also, and only a hungry writer can appreciate it, he paid immediately on acceptance."
That is the story of the story which marked the genesis of Jack London's career as one of America's most robust writers. ”

“ And so, at the beginning, let me add my testimony to that of Jack London, in saying that the horrors with which Molokai is associated in the average mind, simply do not exist. The sensationalists have done their work well. To the four corners of the earth they have disseminated their ghastly fictions, with a persistency truly wonderful; and the people of every nation, hungry for things that are gruesome, have pounced greedily on all that was offered. ”

“ The soft still morning air leaves something in one's nostrils that makes one want to go back again. I believe that all four of the white people on the Snark will drop anchor in this bay again. I know I will . . . sometime.
We started early next morning, Captain Y——, Mr. and Mrs. London, myself, a native guide, Captain Luvins, and two girls we did not know were going, and to whom Jack did not take very kindly at first, until it was explained that they were the daughters of the chief of the Typee tribe, and that their going assured us a welcome in their valley. ”

“ Tom told him.
"We ought to be in London before noon today," continued Jack.
"And if all goes well we'll be on our way by to-morrow night," Tom added quickly. "We ought to spend just one night and a whole day in London, you know."
"I've always wanted to roam around the big city," Jack sighed, "but this is no time for sight-seeing, they say. London looks like a besieged city, and strangers have a pretty hard time getting around, being watched, and challenged wherever they go, especially if they look anything like Germans." ”

“ Before they start to fly, they are literally walking on the water. The meat of the guny is not palatable, and looks something like the meat of an ordinary crow. p072
Every day, Jack wrote two hours. Just two hours, no more, no less. He would get up in the morning and take his trick at the wheel, have breakfast, and then shut himself in his stateroom for just two hours and write. He always laughed at what he called the tomfoolery of waiting for inspiration to come. He doesn't believe there is any such thing as inspiration—he himself can write just as well at one time as at another. ”

“ I was standing in my father's jewellry store after supper on the evening of Monday, November 12, 1906, when a messenger boy p004 came in and handed me a telegram. The instant I saw the little yellow envelope, something told me that this was the turning-point in my life. With trembling hands I tore it open, my heart beating wildly with excitement. It was Jack London's reply, the fateful slip of paper that was to dictate my acts for several years to come.
The telegram was dated from Oakland, California, a few hours earlier in the day. "Can you cook?" it asked. ”

“ It is hoped the stories presented will serve to exercise both the boy's mind and conscience; that seeing and feeling life and nature as Jack London saw and felt it—the best and the worst in human nature, with the Infinite always near and from whom there is no escape—seeing and feeling such things boys will develop the emotional muscles of the spirit, have opened up new windows to their imaginations, and withal add some line or color to their life's ideals. ”

“ Jack London first acquired fame through his spirited and vigorous short stories of Alaskan life, wherein men of primary passions and appetites struggle for mastery. Each succeeding volume of his tales has served to increase his vogue. ”

“ When one is on the hot lava of hell, he cannot pick and choose his path, and so it was with me in the Erie County Pen. I had to stay in with the "push," or do hard labor on bread and water; and to stay in with the push I had to make good with my pal.
Life was not monotonous in the Pen. Every day something was happening: men were having fits, going crazy, fighting, or the hall-men were getting drunk. Rover Jack, one of the ordinary hall-men, was our star "oryide." He was a true "profesh," a "blowed-in-the-glass" stiff, and as such received all kinds of latitude from the hall-men in authority. ”

“ Still knowing, as I do too well, the child-misery of the London streets, I would not do more than enter a hesitating protest in favour of poor Jack as to the all-work-and-no-play system. It may be the best that can be done for him; and let us all be thankful that there are men amongst us who have influence, and leisure, and money, and above all kind hearts, who will look after the interests of these diminutive waifs and strays—these small flotsams and jetsams of the great human family. ”

“ They also cut off the head of his son-in-law, and then went back in good order to Southwark again.
But, although the citizens could bear the beheading of an unpopular lord, they could not bear to have their houses pillaged. And it did so happen that Jack, after dinner—perhaps he had drunk a little too much—began to plunder the house where he lodged; upon which, of course, his men began to imitate him. Wherefore, the Londoners took counsel with Lord Scales, who had a thousand soldiers in the Tower; and defended London Bridge, and kept Jack and his people out. ”

“ If no one in particular can be blamed, the sickly light shining upon our literary firmament must take responsibility. There are formative years when a writer’s talent matures, mellows, is molded. The attitude of the populace and, above all, of the oracles on the mountains and in the temples is eagerly watched and heeded. In the case of Jack London the influence of this attitude as a determining factor in the evolution of his career is a matter of record. ”

“ Jack could not resist chaffing Mrs. London, for up to this time she has been treated like a lady by the natives we have come in contact with, but here a woman is only a woman, and has none of the rights of men. Poor Mrs. London was humiliated, but Jack enjoyed it. We came into the village. Men and women too old and feeble to walk would peep at p294 us through their grass houses. We came upon a mammoth grass house, facing the sea. This place was as large as a good-sized store-room. From the front protruded the ends of war canoes. ”

“ Cloth⁠12mo⁠$1.50
"These are good and vigorous stories, made yet more interesting by the fact that their theme is comparatively fresh and unfamiliar."—Richmond Times-Dispatch.
"That they are vividly told hardly need be said, for Jack London is a realist as well as a writer of thrilling romances."—Cleveland Plain Dealer.
"They are good stories of adventure to which the background of truth lends additional interest."—Toledo Daily Blade. ”

“ That convenience reconciled Jack to the shabby finery of the sitting-room, the doubtful purity of the bedroom, the woe-begone air of the street, with its half-dozen dingy shops sprinkled among the private houses, like an eruption.
‘How it is ugly, your London!’ exclaimed La Chicot. ‘Is it that all the city resembles this, by example?’
‘No,’ answered Jack, with his cynical air. ‘There are brighter-looking streets, where the respectable people live.’
‘What do you call respectable people?’
‘The people who pay income-tax on two or three thousand a year.’
Jack inquired as to the other lodgers. ”

“ It is Mr. London’s purpose, he declares in his preface, to “enlighten, to some slight degree,” the minds of a few capitalists.
218“It is an interesting thought-provoking volume, to be read and pondered, but truths and half truths are so interwoven that it is scarcely a safe guide.”
“It is marred somewhat by repetition and lacks the coherence and cogency of a logical whole. With all these defects, however, the ‘War of the classes’ is no whit inferior in the vigour of its style and the sweep and rapid movement of its thought to any of Jack London’s work.” ”

“ With all his powers, Phillips was crude and heavy: he had neither the bright concentration of Stephen Crane nor the symbolic meaning and poetry of Frank Norris nor the large, blundering tenderness of Theodore Dreiser. He is hopelessly deficient in charm, and his undoubted merits do not make up for the deficiency.
Jack London (1876-1916) was a novelist of the American proletariat. Born in California, the son of a frontier scout and trapper, he lived as a boy in an ordinary bourgeois environment, tempered by the novels and romantic history which he insatiably devoured. ”