|
|
|
|
Page 18
|
Martin Eden — Serialized in The Pacific Monthly, September 1908-September 1909.
Book publication: New York: The Macmillan Co., September 1909. London's working title for this novel was initially Star-Dust and, later, Success. Serial rights were sold for $7,000. On the flyleaf of a copy of Martin Eden to Upton Sinclair, London wrote: "One of my motifs, in this book, was an attack on individualism (in the person of the hero). I must have bungled, for not a single reviewer has discovered it." See Joan London, Jack London and His Times (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1968), pp. 329-330.
For a valuable discussion of this famous novel, see also Franklin Walker's "Jack London, Martin Eden," The Voice of America Forum Lectures (American Novel Series 12), Washington, D. C., n.d., and the 1956 Holt, Rinehart and Winston edition, Introduction by Sam Baskett.
The novel was begun in Honolulu in the summer of 1907 and finished at Papeete, Tahiti, in February 1908. Despite the failure, frustration, turmoil and confusion of the ill-fated Snark voyage, the original ink manuscript of this novel shows few changes — indicating the enormous power of organization and concentration London had developed.
Chapter 25 of the book was reprinted as "To the Valley of Death" in the November 24, 2023 edition of the Oakland Enquirer.
|
"The Enemy of All the World" — The Red Book Magazine, v. 11 (October 1908), 817-827. [STST]
London received $250 for this story in September 1908. "Aloha Oe" — Lady's Realm (London), v. 25 (December 1908), 170-175. [HP]
See entry 117. London received £8.12.6 for this story on March 31, 1909. "Goliah" — Red Magazine (London), v. 2 (December 1908), 116-129. [R]
Compare this unusual tale with "The Minions of Midas" (entry 45). Martin Johnson says the story was written while the Snark was under construction. "One day," Johnson wrote, "he, [London] read me the first part of it, in which he destroyed the Japanese Navy. 'And today I destroy the American Navy,' he told me gleefully. 'Oh, I haven't a bit of conscience when my imagination gets to working.'" This conversation, Johnson says, took place on January 12, 1907, one of the numerous aborted sailing dates of the Snark. (Martin Johnson, Through the South Seas with Jack London, New York: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1913) pp. 17-18. London received £50 for the story on December 31, 1908. "A Curious Fragment" — Town Topics (New York), December 10, 1908, pp. 45-47. [WGL]
London received $100 for this story on September 20, 1908. "Lost Face" — The New York Herald (Art Section), December 13, 1908, p. 7. [LF]
Charmian London says that on May 4, 1908, at Pago Pago, Samoa, she ". . . accounted some lost hours by bringing Jack's typing up to date, namely a new Klondike [sic] story, just finished, 'Lost Face.' " See Charmian London, Voyaging in Wild Seas (London; Mills & Boon, Ltd., n.d.), p. 251. See Arthur Sherbo's "An Analogue for 'Lost Face,'" in Jack London Newsletter (September-December, 1970), pp. 95-98. London won $600 for the story in the Herald's fiction contest.
|
|
1909
|
"The Dream of Debs" — International Socialist Review, v. 9 (January 1909), 481-489; v. 9 (February 1909), 561-570. [STST]
This story was reprinted in pamphlet form and received wide circulation in labor organizations, especially among members of the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World) after which London patterned the militant trade union which led the general strike — the dream of [Eugene] Debs. London received $50 for the story on November 30, 1908.
|
|
|
