In 1899 Jack London broke into print in the Overland Monthly with his Alaskan stories. They brought him immediate success and are among the finest he ever wrote. London's first novel, A Daughter of the Snows, was a commercial and critical failure, but The Call of the Wild brought him national fame at the age of twenty-six. The Sea Wolf was first published in 1904. This extraordinary tale of high seas and high emotions starts off calmly enough when the thirty-something, well-read and rather wealthy narrator embarks on a modern steam-driven ferry-boat in the Bay of San Francisco and muses on the efficient division of labour in modern society, whereby well-trained men can efficiently operate such magnificent and complex machines for the benefit of people like him in all security. But then a fog comes up, things do not at all follow the modern-comforts path he had expected, and he is off for an experience that has to be lived through - or at least read about - to be believed. For our narrator rapidly ends up on a sailing boat setting out on a long and as it turns out extremely perilous hunt for precious seal skins in the wild seas of the northern Pacific, under the command of the forceful, brutal, domineering, intelligent, resourceful and extremely dangerous captain, the aptly-named “Wolf” Larson, one of the most extraordinary and unforgettable sea captains in the whole history of literature. You can listen online to free English audiobook “The Sea Wolf” by Jack London on our website. Enjoy it!
