Items related to Jack London: An American Life
Jack London was born a working class, fatherless Californian in 1876. In his youth, he was a boundlessly energetic adventurer on the bustling West Coast-an oyster pirate, a hobo, a sailor, and a prospector by turns. He spent his brief life rapidly accumulating the experiences that would inform his acclaimed bestselling books The Call of the Wild, White Fang, and The Sea-Wolf. The bare outlines of his story suggest a classic rags-to-riches tale, but London the man was plagued by contradictions. He chronicled nature at its most savage but wept helplessly at the deaths of his favorite animals. At his peak the highest paid writer in the United States, he was nevertheless forced to work under constant pressure for money. An irrepressibly optimistic crusader for social justice and a lover of humanity, he was also subject to spells of bitter invective, especially as his health declined. Branded by shortsighted critics as little more than a hack who produced a couple of memorable dog stories, he left behind a voluminous literary legacy, much of it ripe for rediscovery. In Jack London: An American Life, the noted Jack London scholar Earle Labor explores the brilliant and complicated novelist lost behind the myth-at once a hard-living globe-trotter and a man alive with ideas whose passion for seeking new worlds to explore never waned until the day he died. Returning London to his proper place in the American pantheon, Labor resurrects a major American novelist in his full fire and glory.
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Review:
Praise for Jack London: An American Life A lively and authoritative biography. --Caleb Crain, The New Yorker Labor is the world's foremost Jack London scholar. His working-class background and deep erudition make him the right man to chronicle the life of this most popular American author. Now curator of the Jack London Museum and Research Center and emeritus professor at Centenary College in Louisiana, Labor has produced what will most likely remain the authoritative biography for generations to come . . . If you want to acquaint yourself with the writer whom much of the rest of the world equates with Melville, Hemingway and Faulkner, then begin with Labor's elegantly written, thoroughly researched and steel-eyed biography. He fills in the gaps between London's impoverished youth, rise to fame and untimely death at the age of 40--in brilliant and plain prose that does honor to London himself. --Eric Miles Williamson, The Washington Post Mr. Labor--an excellent writer, who knows the London canon backward and forward, brings this most American of authors to vivid life. Jack London: An American Life" is almost as much fun to read as its subject's best work . . . Mr. Labor, a professor of American literature at Centenary College in Shreveport, La., is the country's foremost London scholar. He wisely lets London's life and art unfold without judgment. Despite his continuing popularity, London has often been dismissed as a mere writer of boys' tales. But at his best he is among the greatest writers that this country has produced. If you want proof, just read his short story 'To Build a Fire' and then read this terrific book. --John Steele Gordon, The Wall Street Journal[A] first-rate literary biography . . . [an] authoritative new life of Jack London (1876-1916) . . . Earle Labor's Jack London: An American Life doesn't take away any of its subject's glamour or fascination. To the contrary. The book is not just definitive, as one would expect from the major London scholar of the past fifty years, it is also exceptionally entertaining . . . As Earle Labor makes clear in his fine biography, Jack London was a remarkable man and a writer of impressive variety, richness, and accomplishment. --Michael Dirda, Virginia Quarterly Review What a life. What a man. What a book. Only superlatives can describe this definitive biography of the nation's most popular and successful novelist of the early 20th century . . . Earle Labor has devoted much of a lifetime to the study of London and his works and has given us a book so meticulous in its fast-moving detail that the reader feels he is almost at London's side . . . Biographer Earle Labor summarizes Jack London succinctly: '... few writers mirror so clearly the American Dream of success and the corollary idea of the Self-Made Man. --Pete Hannaford, The Washington Times --Various
About the Author:
Earle Labor is the acknowledged major authority on the novelist Jack London and the curator of the Jack London Museum and Research Center in Shreveport. He is also Emeritus Professor of American Literature at Centenary College of Louisiana.
Michael Prichard is a professional narrator and stage and film actor who has played several thousand characters during his career. An Audie Award winner, he has recorded well over five hundred books and has earned several AudioFile Earphones Awards. Michael was also named a Top Ten Golden Voice by SmartMoney magazine.
Michael Prichard is a professional narrator and stage and film actor who has played several thousand characters during his career. An Audie Award winner, he has recorded well over five hundred books and has earned several AudioFile Earphones Awards. Michael was also named a Top Ten Golden Voice by SmartMoney magazine.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherTantor Media Inc
- Publication date2013
- ISBN 10 1452646759
- ISBN 13 9781452646756
- BindingAudio CD
- Rating
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