Best known for writing
The Call of the Wild, a gripping tale about a dog in the Klondike Northland who reverts to his wolf ancestry, Jack London wrote a number of other stories about dogs and the Klondike, including
White Fang, and became associated with a rough and tumble style of writing and living, anticipating Ernest Hemingway. To some he was primarily an adventurer who occasionally stopped to write about his adventures. Thus the critic Alfred Kazin said of him that “the greatest story Jack London ever wrote was the story he lived” (cit. Labor and Reesman 1).
On the other hand, London suggested privately that his reputation was in part a façade. “Ask people who know me to-day, what I am”, he wrote his future wife. “A rough, savage fellow, they will say, who likes prizefights
2706 words
Citation: Goldfarb, Sheldon. "Jack London". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 20 July 2017 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=2781, accessed 23 November 2024.]
