Jack London became one of the most famous and successful authors of his day with the publication of his vastly popular novels The Call of the Wild and The Sea-Wolf. Over his brief life of forty years, he wrote at least fifty books, while pursuing a host of other careers as adventurer, sailor, prospector, explorer, journalist, war correspondent, sociologist, and rancher—careers that often diverted attention from, and even eclipsed, his achievements as a writer. In fact, for several decades after his death, scholars uniformly dismissed London's writings either as second-rate hack work or as adventure and animal stories for juveniles.

Today, more than a century after London's initial literary successes, this volume offers insightful studies and analyses of the author and his works. These studies not only build on previous scholarship but also provide new interpretations, thus extending even further our understanding of the author's stories and novels.