Jack London: a writing sailor, a sailing writer

Abstract

The following paper analyzes how the experience of sailing shaped Jack London’s life and works. On the one hand, the paper recounts those events from the writer’s biography which contributed to his emotional attachment to the sea and created a realistic background for his texts. On the other hand, it focuses on a selection of London’s works—“Typhoon Off the Coast of Japan”, “Chris Farrington: Able Seaman”, The Sea-Wolf, and Martin Eden—in order to investigate how the experience of sea and sailing affects a character’s morality/personality, and to examine how the chosen narratives reflect and preserve London’s own memories of life on board.