Jack London on Adventure: Words of Wisdom from an Expert Adventurer
By Jack London
()
About this ebook
After a brief time on the east coast and a stint in the Yukon mining for gold, London returned to California. He published his stories in the Overland Monthly, which prompted him to become more disciplined in his writing. He published numerous novels over the years, including The Call of the Wild, a story about a dog who becomes a sled dog in the Yukon, The People of the Abyss, which heavily critiqued capitalism, and John Barleycorn, a memoiristic novel that detailed his struggles with alcoholism.
With quotes from the array of Jack London’s writings, readers will get a sense of his life as well as a keen yearning for undertaking their own adventures.
Jack London
Jack London was born in San Francisco on January 12th 1876, the unwanted child of a spiritualist mother and astrologer father. He was raised by Virginia Prentiss, a former slave, before rejoining his mother and her new husband, John London. Largely self-educated, the teenage Jack made money stealing oysters and working on a schooner before briefly studying at the University of Berkeley in 1896. He left to join the Klondike Gold Rush a year later, a phenomenon that would go on to form the background of his literary masterpieces, The Call of the Wild (1903) and White Fang (1906). Alongside his novel writing London dabbled in war reportage, agriculture and politics. He was married twice and had two daughters from his first marriage. London died in 1916 from complications of numerous chronic illnesses.
Read more from Jack London
50 Great Love Letters You Have To Read (Golden Deer Classics) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Deadline Artists—Scandals, Tragedies & Triumphs: More of America's Greatest Newspaper Columns Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5To Build a Fire Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Greatest American Short Stories: 50+ Classics of American Literature Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsClassic Tales of Science Fiction & Fantasy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jack London: The Greatest Short Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Classic American Short Story MEGAPACK ® (Volume 1): 34 of the Greatest Stories Ever Written Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Victorian Mystery Megapack: 27 Classic Mystery Tales Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5White Fang: Level 2 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Post-Apocalyptic Collection Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAmerican Classics (Omnibus Edition) (Diversion Classics) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Plague, Pestilence & Apocalypse MEGAPACK ®: 18 Tales of Doom Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Moloch Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5TRICK OR TREAT Boxed Set: 200+ Eerie Tales from the Greatest Storytellers: Horror Classics, Mysterious Cases, Gothic Novels, Monster Tales & Supernatural Stories: Sweeney Todd, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, Frankenstein, The Vampire, Dracula, Sleepy Hollow, From Beyond… Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Jack London on Adventure
Related ebooks
Lessons in Life; A Series of Familiar Essays Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSpirituality and the Senses: Living Life to the Full Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHow to Tell a Story and Other Essays Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHavel: A Life Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Listening Book: The Soul Painting & Other Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSummary of Jonathan Darman's Becoming FDR Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSmart Ways to Stay Young and Healthy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsChasing the Dance of Life Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAgainst the Evidence: Selected Poems, 1934–1994 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDazzling Expression of Radiant Thoughts: Evincing Quotes by Shri Rabindranath Tagore Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Elements of Style, Fourth Edition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsReply All: Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTen Materials That Shaped Our World Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTrack's End Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHow to Survive Your Freshman Year: By Hundreds of Sophomores, Juniors and Seniors Who Did Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSummary of Charan Ranganath's Why We Remember Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Mentor and Her Muse Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHope's Horizon: Three Visions For Healing The American Land Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Trial and Death of Socrates (Barnes & Noble Library of Essential Reading): Four Dialogues Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPaul Smith's Adirondack Hotel and College Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStalking Kilgore Trout Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Surgeon's Odyssey Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAmazing Women: Tales of Courage and Ingenuity That Changed Our World Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWhat Your Hands Have Done Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEye of the Storm Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRenaissance Man of Cannery Row: The Life and Letters of Edward F. Ricketts Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWilfred Thesiger: The Life of the Great Explorer Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Culture and Redemption: Religion, the Secular, and American Literature Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Poet at the Breakfast-Table Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJohn Milton: A Biography Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
United States Travel For You
The Unofficial Guide to Disneyland 2024 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMichigan Rocks & Minerals: A Field Guide to the Great Lake State Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLonely Planet Maui Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Fodor's Bucket List USA: From the Epic to the Eccentric, 500+ Ultimate Experiences Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings60 Hikes Within 60 Miles: Atlanta: Including Marietta, Lawrenceville, and Peachtree City Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Birds of Texas Field Guide Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFodor's New Orleans Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Exploring the Geology of the Carolinas: A Field Guide to Favorite Places from Chimney Rock to Charleston Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fodor's Best Road Trips in the USA: 50 Epic Trips Across All 50 States Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Magical Power of the Saints: Evocation and Candle Rituals Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lake Superior Rocks & Minerals Field Guide Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHuckleberry Finn Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Humans of New York Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How To Be Alone: an 800-mile hike on the Arizona Trail Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Lonely Planet Hawaii the Big Island Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Anne Rice's Unauthorized French Quarter Tour: Anne Rice Unauthorized Tours Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5One Man's Wilderness, 50th Anniversary Edition: An Alaskan Odyssey Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rockhounding & Prospecting: Upper Midwest: How to Find Gold, Copper, Agates, Thomsonite, and Other Favorites Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Witch Queens, Voodoo Spirits, and Hoodoo Saints: A Guide to Magical New Orleans Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Forest Walking: Discovering the Trees and Woodlands of North America Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Hidden History of the Florida Keys Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Unofficial Guide to Las Vegas Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings50 Great American Places: Essential Historic Sites Across the U.S. Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Foxfire Living: Design, Recipes, and Stories from the Magical Inn in the Catskills Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer: An Edgar Award Winner Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Will the Circle Be Unbroken?: A Memoir of Learning to Believe You’re Gonna Be Okay Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Deepest South of All: True Stories from Natchez, Mississippi Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lost Continent: Travels in Small Town America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Jack London on Adventure
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Jack London on Adventure - Jack London
THE ARTIST AS ADVENTURER
There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond which life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comes when one is most alive, and it comes as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive. This ecstasy, this forgetfulness of living, comes to the artist, caught up and out of himself in a sheet of flame; it comes to the soldier, war-mad on a stricken field and refusing quarter; and it came to Buck, leading the pack, sounding the old wolf-cry, straining after the food that was alive and that fled swiftly before him through the moonlight. He was sounding the deeps of his nature, and of the parts of his nature that were deeper than he, going back into the womb of Time. He was mastered by the sheer surging of life, the tidal wave of being, the perfect joy of each separate muscle, joint, and sinew in that it was everything that was not death, that it was aglow and rampant, expressing itself in movement, flying exultantly under the stars and over the face of dead matter that did not move.
—from The Call of the Wild
You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.
He was justifying his existence, than which life can do no greater; for life achieves its summit when it does to the uttermost that which it was equipped to do.
In a letter to Cloudesley Johns:
A man without courage is to me the most despicable thing under the sun, a travesty on the whole scheme of creation.
And yet he wanted to live. It was unreasonable that he should die after all he had undergone. Fate asked too much of him. And, dying, he declined to die. It was stark madness, perhaps, but in the very grip of Death he defied Death and refused to die.
—from Love of Life
Don’t quit your job in order to write unless there is none dependent upon you.
Don’t dash off a six-thousand word story before breakfast.
Don’t write too much. Concentrate your sweat on one story rather than dissipate it over a dozen.
Don’t loaf and invite inspiration: light out after it with a club, and if you don’t get it you will nonetheless get something that looks remarkably like it.
Set yourself a stint,
and see that you do that stint
every day.
Study the tricks of the writers who have arrived. They have mastered the tools with which you are cutting your fingers.
Keep a notebook. Travel with it, eat with it, sleep with it. Slap into it every stray thought that flutters up into your brain. Cheap paper is less perishable than gray matter, and lead pencil markings endure longer than memory.
And work. Find out about this earth, this universe . . .
—from Getting into Print
I write for no other purpose than to add to the beauty that now belongs to me. I write a book for no other reason than to add three or four hundred acres to my magnificent estate.
Life is so short. I would rather sing one song than interpret the thousand.
In a letter to Ethel Jennings:
You wrote your story at white heat. Hell is kept warm by unpublished manuscripts written at white heat. Develop your locality. Get in your local color. Develop your characters. Make your characters real to your readers. Get out of yourself and into your readers’ minds and know what impression your readers are getting from your written words. Always remember that you are not writing for yourself but that you are writing for your readers.
All my life I have had an awareness of other times and places. I have been aware of other persons in me.—Oh, and trust me, so have you, my reader that is to be. Read back into your childhood, and this sense of awareness I speak of will be remembered as an experience of your childhood. You were then not fixed, not crystallized. You were plastic, a soul in flux, a consciousness and an identity in the process of forming—ay, of forming and forgetting.
You have forgotten much, my reader, and yet, as you read these lines, you remember dimly the hazy vistas of other times and places into which your child eyes peered. They seem dreams to you to-day. Yet, if they were dreams, dreamed then, whence the substance of them? Our dreams are grotesquely compounded of the things we know. The stuff of our sheerest dreams is the stuff of our experience. As a child, a wee child, you dreamed you fell great heights; you dreamed you flew through the air as things of the air fly; you were vexed by crawling spiders and many-legged creatures of the slime; you heard other voices, saw other faces nightmarishly familiar, and gazed upon sunrises and sunsets other than you know now, looking back, you ever looked upon.
Very well. These child glimpses are of other-worldness, of other-lifeness, of things that you had never seen in this particular world of your particular life. Then whence? Other lives? Other worlds? Perhaps, when you have read all that I shall write, you will have received answers to the perplexities I have propounded to you, and that you yourself, ere you came to read me, propounded to yourself.
—from The Jacket (The Star-Rover)
In a letter to Charles Warren Stoddard, 21 August 1903:
I do not live for what the world thinks of me, but for what I think of myself.
Naturally, my reading early bred in me a desire to write, but my manner of life prevented me attempting it. I have had no literary help or advice of any kind—just been sort of hammering around in the dark till I knocked holes through here and there and caught glimpses of daylight.
—from autobiographic material submitted to Houghton Mifflin and Co.
The thought of work was repulsive. I didn’t care if I