"I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them, I shall use my time." - Jack London. Jack Lon... Read More
Jack London wrote an almost incredible number of short stories and novelettes before his premature death at the age of 40, as well as novels, novellas and a considerable number of essays, plays, poems, and articles. Because of early financial difficulties, he was largely self-educated past grammar school. London drew heavily on his life experiences in his writing. He spent time in the Klondike... Read More
Few writers have had such an extensive output of work as Jack London. During his 15-year career, he wrote 49 books, including novels, short-story collections, plays and political pamphlets – a number equalling more than three books a year. Jack London, led a turbulent and dramatic life, and much of his writing was inspired by his own life experiences from the 1890s gold rush in Alaska to the so... Read More
John Griffith London, born John Griffith Chaney, was an American novelist, journalist, and social activist. London was part of the radical literary group "The Crowd" in San Francisco and a passionate advocate of unionization, socialism, and the rights of workers. His most famous works include The Call of the Wild and White Fang, both set in the Klondike Gold Rush, as well as the short stories "... Read More
John Griffith London was an American novelist, journalist, and social activist. A pioneer in the world of commercial magazine fiction, he was one of the first writers to become a worldwide celebrity and earn a large fortune from writing. He was also an innovator in the genre that would later become known as science fiction. His most famous works include The Call of the Wild and White Fang, both... Read More
Jack London was an American author best known for writing The Call of the Wild. Jack London was his pen name, likely born in San Francisco, California as John Griffith Chaney. Like the restive characters in his works, London sought a variety of experiences as a young man including sailor, hobo and an agitator for jobs during the depression. His tale The Terrible Solomons was first published in... Read More
Jack London, pseudonym of John Griffith Chaney, American novelist and short-story writer whose best-known works - among them, The Call of the Wild and White Fang - depict elemental struggles for survival. During the 20th-century, he was one of the most extensively translated American authors. Though he was a proletarian by background and was his era's most class-conscious writer, London was equ... Read More
John Griffith Chaney, later Jack London, was born into a turbulent bohemian world in San Francisco, the child of Flora Wellman and, she believed, her common-law husband, William Henry Chaney, an itinerant astrologer who deserted her. Flora married John London on 7 September in 1876. Jack heard from a family member at age twenty-one that John was not his father. Perhaps in part because of the ps... Read More
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 hig... Read More
Joseph Conrad was a Polish-British writer. He was regarded as one of the greatest novelists to write in the English language. During his lifetime Conrad was admired for the richness of his prose and his renderings of dangerous life at sea and in exotic places. But his initial reputation as a masterful teller of colourful adventures of the sea masked his fascination with the individual when face... Read More
Joseph Conrad was born to Polish gentry parents in Berdyczów, Ukraine, then part of the vast Russian Empire. He is widely considered to be one of the most important and influential English novelists of high modernism. His output includes several volumes of short fiction and nonfiction as well as a volume of plays. Numerous writers and critics have commented that Conrad's fictional works, writte... Read More
Joseph Conrad was born in Berdyczow, which, at the time of his birth, on December 3, 1857, was a city in Ukraine. Determined to be a sailor, Conrad left home at 16 and moved to Marseilles, France, where he began his apprenticeship, working entry-level positions on several merchant ships. His career floundered, however, when he learned that to continue this line of work he needed the permission... Read More
Joseph Conrad was a Polish-British writer. He was regarded as one of the greatest novelists to write in the English language. Lord Jim, Conrad’s most famous work, is also his most extensive examination of a persistent theme: the conflict between an individual’s inner moral code and his or her outward actions. Jim was born and raised in an English person's home, and when he was still a young lad... Read More
Joseph Conrad, original name Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, was an English novelist and short-story writer of Polish descent, whose works include the novels Lord Jim, Nostromo, The Secret Agent, and the short story Heart of Darkness. During his lifetime Conrad was admired for the richness of his prose and his renderings of dangerous life at sea and in exotic places. Whether due to his multi-... Read More