Prospects for the Study of Jack London

Almost from the very beginning of Jack London’s writing career, his biography has been a focus of his critics, which seems fitting, given the events of his short but dramatic life. Indeed, he has repeatedly been so sensationalized that readers have been unable to separate him from his fiction. At the same time, other scholars have struggled to turn the focus to his contributions to American literature; when reading London’s life, they have done so with attention to the facts and to how the biography can illuminate the fiction. Beginning in the 1960s, the scholarly foundations laid by Earle Labor, Sam S. Baskett, King Hendricks, Hensley C. Woodbridge, Earl J. Wilcox, and others, followed by steadily increasing critical and biographical efforts, have moved London from the fringes of American literary discourse to the mainstream. This work has sometimes resembled London’s own struggle for success.

What should critics do with an author who manifestly did not need them, who wrote for the masses but at the same time presented a set of complex personal, cultural, and artistic faces to the world? Although we are now in the postrecognition stage—that is, we no longer need to spend a lot of time explaining why London should be regarded as a major writer—London is still largely regarded in terms of the myths that surround him. While there has been a great deal of excellent criticism and biography, there is also a strong sense of how much more is needed. Newcomers to literary criticism on London are struck by two things: the range of his works and their artistic power. Many had no idea of either until they moved past the handful of titles that made London famous—The Call of the Wild (1903), White Fang (1906), The Sea-Wolf (1904). Critics discover that the quality of these major works notwithstanding, there are many other treasures that reveal London to be a versatile writer, a morally sensitive thinker, and an artistic genius, including California fiction such as “All Gold Canyon” (1905); memorable tales of the South Pacific such as “The House of Maphui” (1908); haunting religious allegories such as “The Seed of McCoy” (1908); archetypal portraits of women such as “Samuel” (1909) or “The Night-Born” (1910); and the late short stories of Hawaii, including the masterpiece “The Water Baby” (1916). And these are just selections from the short stories (which are much easier to access than ever before due to fine new editions). Beginning critics are also baffled by the contradictory accounts of London’s life and value as a writer that they find in encyclopedias, anthology headnotes, and biographies. As Susan Nuernberg observes in the introduction to her collection of critical essays on London, “The prevailing myths are that London was one of the most autobiographical of American writers, that he committed suicide, that he wrote obsessively about his own illegitimacy, that he was a writer of dog stories and adventure tales for adolescent boys, that he was a racist, a womanizer, an alcoholic, and a hack writer, and that he contradicted himself and was confused in his thinking about socialism, individualism, scientific materialism, and idealism” (Critical Response xxiii). There is, of course, a grain of truth in any myth. However, regarding London according to the above description only—as “a mess of contradictions” (xxiii–xxiv)—leaves readers ignorant of such things as the reading and research he undertook to create his fiction, his essentially positive view of his life and his profession, the range and quality of his writings, and his massive reputation abroad. As for his racism, like most thinkers of his time, London based his racial ideas on the scientific theories of the period, and this fact is clearly reflected in his nonfiction essays on the subject. Yet, in his fiction, he delivers powerful attacks upon racism, especially in the short stories. Regarding the shortcomings in his personal life, one is struck by his honesty with himself in questioning his behaviors (such as heavy drinking) just as he did his philosophical assumptions; and when examining London’s physical health, one needs to...