Jack London has been a best-selling author for more than one hundred years. In his short life (1876-1916) he wrote twenty-five novels and dozens of short stories, plays, and essays. Today he is recognized as a forerunner of such literary giants as Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, and Jack Kerouac. Author of a number of well-known and well-loved stories in our literature (including "White Fang, The Call of the Wild, " and "The Sea Wolf"), London also worked as a day laborer, Alaskan gold rusher, and seaman. He was also an adventurer, journalist, celebrity, polemicist, and drunk.An Autobiography of Jack London is a revealing portrait of the man who was Jack London--in his own words--and is largely composed of excerpts from his memoirs: "The Road, John Barleycorn, " and "The Cruise of the Snark." Rather than a mere biographical summary of a man's life, "An Autobiography of Jack London" aims to give the reader real insight into the character and personality of this uniquely American literary icon. This book is illustrated throughout with more than forty drawings, facsimile pages from his works, and contemporary photographs, many taken by London himself.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

In 1894, an eighteen-year-old Jack London quit his job shoveling coal, hopped a freight train, and left California on the first leg of a ten thousand-mile odyssey. His adventure was an exaggerated version of the unemployed migrations made by millions of boys, men, and a few women during the original ""great depression"" of the 1890s. By taking to the road, young wayfarers like London forged a vast hobo subculture that was both a product of the new urban industrial order and a challenge to it. As London's experience suggests, this hobo world was born of equal parts desperation and fascination. ""I went on 'The Road, '"" he writes, ""because I couldn't keep away from it...because I was so made that I couldn't work all my life on 'one same shift'; because - well, just because it was easier to than not to."" The best stories that London told about his hoboing days can be found in ""The Road"", a collection of nine essays with accompanying illustrations, most of which originally appeared in ""Cosmopolitan"" magazine between 1907 and 1908. His virile persona spoke to white middle-class readers who vicariously escaped their desk-bound lives and followed London down the hobo trail. The zest and humor of his tales, as Todd DePastino explains in his lucid introduction, often obscure their depth and complexity. ""The Road"" is as much a commentary on London's disillusionment with wealth, celebrity, and the literary marketplace as it is a picaresque memoir of his youth.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

In 1894, an eighteen-year-old Jack London quit his job shoveling coal, hopped a freight train, and left California on the first leg of a ten thousand-mile odyssey. His adventure was an exaggerated version of the unemployed migrations made by millions of boys, men, and a few women during the original ""great depression"" of the 1890s. By taking to the road, young wayfarers like London forged a vast hobo subculture that was both a product of the new urban industrial order and a challenge to it. As London's experience suggests, this hobo world was born of equal parts desperation and fascination. ""I went on 'The Road, '"" he writes, ""because I couldn't keep away from it...because I was so made that I couldn't work all my life on 'one same shift'; because - well, just because it was easier to than not to."" The best stories that London told about his hoboing days can be found in ""The Road"", a collection of nine essays with accompanying illustrations, most of which originally appeared in ""Cosmopolitan"" magazine between 1907 and 1908. His virile persona spoke to white middle-class readers who vicariously escaped their desk-bound lives and followed London down the hobo trail. The zest and humor of his tales, as Todd DePastino explains in his lucid introduction, often obscure their depth and complexity. ""The Road"" is as much a commentary on London's disillusionment with wealth, celebrity, and the literary marketplace as it is a picaresque memoir of his youth.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

Published in 1913, this harrowing, autobiographical 'A to Z' of drinking shattered London's reputation as a clean-living adventurer and massively successful author of such books as White Fang and The Call of the Wild.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

Published in 1913, this harrowing, autobiographical 'A to Z' of drinking shattered London's reputation as a clean-living adventurer and massively successful author of such books as White Fang and The Call of the Wild.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

This autobiography by the successful writer of "Call of the Wild" and "White Fang" shattered his international image as a rugged, energetic adventurer when it was first published in 1913. It recounts a pessimistic life of total alcohol abuse that began in Jack London's childhood in San Francisco.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Volume I: Introduction-- About this edition-- Abbreviations-- Chronology: 1876-1905-- Map of Klondike--
• 1. 1896-98--
• 2. 1899--
• 3. 1900--
• 4. 1901--
• 5. 1902--
• 6. 1903--
• 7. 1904--
• 8.
• 1905. Volume II: Abbreviations-- Chronology-- Map of 'Snark's' Voyage--
• 1. 1906--
• 2. 1907--
• 3. 1908--
• 4. 1909--
• 5. 1910--
• 6. 1911--
• 7.
• 1912. Volume III: Abbreviations-- Chronology-- Map of the Jack London ranch--
• 1. 1913--
• 2. 1914--
• 3. 1915--
• 4. 1916-- Index of correspondents-- General index.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

This volume includes: chronologies, a map of the Klondike; a map of Snark's Voyage; and a map of the Jack London ranch.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)