About this title: Published in 1904, and drawing on London's own experience on board a sealing ship, The Sea-Wolf describes the struggle between the civilized and the pagan, between the values of the ruthless sea-captain, Wolf Larsen, and the moral, literary Humphrey Van Weyden. One of his most popular novels, it also reveals London's preoccupation with the ...
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Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Edition: Bantam Pathfinder Edition; Fifteenth Printing
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Bantam Books, Inc, New York, NY
Date Published: 1972
ISBN-13:9780553210064ISBN:0553210068
Description: Cover worn and lightly creased, pages yellowed due to age, good reading copy. Mass Market (Rack) PB, glued binding, 253 pp. Introduction by Gannett, Lewis; Biographical Data on Author read more
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Bantam, New York
Date Published: 1963
Description: Very Good. No Jacket. Illustrated front wraps, clean, slight edge wear. no crease to hinge or spine. text clean, lightly age toned.252 pages. very nice reading copy. read more
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Bantam Classics
Date Published: 1984
ISBN-13:9780553212259ISBN:0553212257
Description: Good. No dust jacket as issued. Good plus condition. Light edge and corner wear. Corner crease on front and back. No marks. Tight, square book. Mass market (rack) paperback. Glued binding. 288 p. Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Audio Cassette
Publisher: The Audio Partners
Date Published: 1990-07
ISBN-13:9780945353478ISBN:0945353472
Description: Good. Ex-library audio book on cassettes in library case with original artwork and library stamps and stickers. Cassettes play fine. read more
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Bantam Classics
Date Published: 1984
ISBN-13:9780553212259ISBN:0553212257
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Spine NOT creased. NO tears, stans, writing, etc. Mass market (rack) paperback. Glued binding. 256 p. Audience: Young adult. read more
"I bought this when I bought Call of the Wild because I had wanted to read it for a long time. It was somewhat less compact than Call of the Wild & considerably less cinematic. However, it was certainly a good story of adventure on a sealing ship off the coasts of Japan & Siberia. It again deals with the theme of evolution as the hero, a book critic who has lived the easy life of a "gentleman", is taken aboard a sealing ship & forced to serve as cabin boy, cooks' assistant, doctor & eventually first mate as he learns the "ropes" of the ship. By the end of the book he is able to sail the ship single-handed in an escape from shipwreck on an uninhabited island. Complications include Sea Wolf, the totally barbaric, somewhat educated & highly intelligent captain who lacks any civilizing influences & becomes an absolute tyrant/murderer to the men on his boat & a castaway female book critic who provides a love interest."
"The first two-thirds of this book is great fun... a battle of mind versus muscle, altruism versus hedonism, fought between Humphrey van Weyden and Wolf Larson. Van Weyden is the pansiest pansy who'd ever got an inheritance and a manicure and Larson is all that is Man. Had I been reading tawdry slash fan fiction instead of a well-respected classic of literature, the homoeroticism between van Weyden and Larson would have ended in syrupy confessions of love and much making out.
And then Maude Brewster entered the scene. She has to be one of the most insipid, unlikable characters I've ever read and she ruined what was a perfectly good gay sea adventure. Van Weyden forgets to ogle Larson entirely, spending most of the last 80 pages ruminating on how "fragile," "delicate," and "womanly" Brewster was. Ugh.
All in all, an interesting book if an uneven one."
"I think I read this book too soon after reading Mobey Dick. I'm a little tired of the sea and crazy ship captains. This story is quite violent, too much brutality for my taste. I preferred the second half to the first, the violence took a back seat to the love story, which i did like. I'm pretty easy though when it comes to ramance. I guess the book was really about philosophy and challenging the basic morals of men. Captain Wolf and Humphrey were complete opposites used by the author to put forth the differing opinions. There were some interesting discussions but not enough to win me over."
"In the story, the Sea Wolf's (Jack Larson) militant philosophical views, nihilistic and aggressively egocentric, are leveled and blasted at the protagonist's philanthropic worldview. This is a combat of minds seeking to convert the other to a diametrically opposed moral system. This book left me distressed and actually sweating at parts where the Sea Wolf is tearing apart the idealism of the beloved hero who is a rather upstanding citizen. Jack London was brilliant in how he draws the reader into the story to identify with the bludgeoned protagonist, and we are startled to find ourselves struggling to keep our own moral praxis from being snuffed out in the midst of this storm.
You think you know what drives your morals? "Wolf" Larson will take you by the throat and make you think again...whether you want to or not!"
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