Jack London, Sailor on Horseback
by Irving Stone
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Jack London's literary executors kept a tight grip, a very tight grip indeed, on his personal papers and literary remains. They pursued this policy of secrecy with the conviction that there must be, hidden away, a skeleton in the London closet. Mr. Stone was the first individual who had free access to all of London's papers and in this book he reports that the closet held not one but three skeletons. Of the first skeleton, Mr. Stone writes that Jack London, born in San Francisco in 1876, was show more an illegitimate child, son of William H. Chaney and Flora Weilman, and that Chaney deserted the expectant mother, who married John London, a farmer and Civil War veteran, some months after the birth of her baby. The knowledge that he was illegitimate was always very disturbing to London, Mr. Stone adds, and he did his best to prevent the information from becoming public. Mr. Stone gives a lively account of London's marriages for the next skeleton in the closet. When Jack London died, in November 1916, at Glen Ellen, the world was informed that the cause was uremic poisoning. Mr. Stone gives his story of the circumstance, the third skeleton in the closet. These are the principal revelations that Mr. Stone offers in his biographical novel, which follows London's career from its beginning in Oakland, where he grew up as an underprivileged youngster, through hardships of one sort or another and many adventurous experiences in Alaska, the Far East, the South Pacific and the slums of Whitechapel to his eventual immense success as a writer, who earned big money with a prolific pen. He traces London's struggle to obtain an education, showing how he contrived to equip himself intellectually for a career of literary triumph, which, from the first, he felt sure would one day be his. Of formal training he had very little, at any time, and did very well without it. If ever an American writer was the product of the public library system, and his own indomitable will to learn, that writer was Jack London. show lessTags
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Amazing story, besides Stone's typical Freudian bent, of a man who couldn't enjoy life for the extreme living of it and who truly lived his Socialist ideals to be betrayed by those that benefited from his generosity
Pretty good, but Stone over-praises quite a bit with just a bit on his faults and shortcomings. It has made me want to find out more though. Jack London led a very interesting life...sometimes like an adventure story.
What an amazing life he had. He couldn't make it as a writer in San Francisco so he headed up to the goldrush in the Yukon. A wonderful twist of fate because there he got the material for Call of the wild and Whitefang.
German Jack London
German Jack London
Reviewed in the March 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard:
http://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2017/12/about-books-1954_26.html
http://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/2017/12/about-books-1954_26.html
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84+ Works 12,964 Members
Irving Stone was born Irving Tenenbaum in San Francisco, California on July 14, 1903. He received a bachelor's degree from the University of California, Berkeley in 1923 and a master's degree from the University of Southern California in 1924. He was known for his historically accurate fictionalized biographies. His first book, Lust for Life, was show more published in 1934. His other works include Clarence Darrow for the Defense, They Also Ran, Immortal Wife, President's Lady, Love Is Eternal, The Agony and the Ecstasy, The Passions of the Mind, and The Origin. He won a Western Spur Award for Men to Match My Mountains. He died on August 26, 1989 at the age of 86. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Common Knowledge
- Original title
- Sailor on Horseback
- Alternate titles*
- Джек Лондон (Русский = Russisch) (Русский = Russisch); Jack London, l'Aventurier des Mers (Français = Französisch) (Français = Französisch); Mornar na konju (Hrvatski = Kroatisch) (Hrvatski = Kroatisch); London: l'avventura di uno scrittore (Italiano = Italienisch) (Italiano = Italienisch); Jack London: Żeglarz na koniu (Polski = Polnisch) (Polski = Polnisch); Doludizgin Bir Denizci (Türkçe = Türkisch) (Türkçe = Türkisch) (show all 11); მეზღვაური უნგირზე - ჯეკ ლონდონის ბიოგრაფია (ქართული = Georgisch) (ქართული = Georgisch); Морякът на кон (Български = Bulgarisch) (Български = Bulgarisch); Námořník na koni (Čeština = Tschichisch) (Čeština = Tschichisch); Meremees sadulas. Jack Londoni elulugu (Eesti = Estnisch) (Eesti = Estnisch); Матрос в сідлі (Українська = Ukrainisch) (Українська = Ukrainisch)
- Original publication date
- 1938
- People/Characters
- Jack London
- Epigraph
- If you suppress truth, if you hide truth, if you do not rise up speak out in meeting, if you speak out in meeting without speaking the whole truth, then you are less than truth."
Let me glimpse the face of truth. Tell ... (show all)me what the face of truth looks like.
-Jack London - Dedication
- To
Jean
(who collaborates) - First words
- On a morning in early July of the year 1875 the people of San Francisco awakened to read a horrifying story in the Chronicle.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)There she placed the huge red stone that he had named, "The stone the builders rejected."
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
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- Reviews
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- Rating
- (3.89)
- Languages
- 8 — Czech, English, Estonian, Finnish, German, Italian, Polish, Russian
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 14
- ASINs
- 20
