Jack Londons California: The Golden Poppy and Other Writings

by Jack London, Sal Noto (Editor)

Includes:

- The golden poppy
- Selections from Martin Eden. In the Piedmont HIlls ; Intellectual reveries in San Francisco
- Selections from The valley of the moon. In search of Eden
- Selections from Burning daylight, On Sonoma Mountain
- All Gold Canyon
- A raid on the oyster pirates
- Demetrios Contos
- Small-boat sailing
- Navigating four horses north of the bay
- A review of Frank Norris's novel "The octopus"
- A report of the San Francisco Earthquake of April 18, 1906: the story of an eyewitness.

156 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1955

About the author

John Griffith Chaney, better known as Jack London, was an American novelist, journalist and activist. A pioneer of commercial fiction and American magazines, he was one of the first American authors to become an international celebrity and earn a large fortune from writing. He was also an innovator in the genre that would later become known as science fiction.

London was part of the radical literary group "The Crowd" in San Francisco and a passionate advocate of animal rights, workers’ rights and socialism. London wrote several works dealing with these topics, such as his dystopian novel The Iron Heel, his non-fiction exposé The People of the Abyss, War of the Classes, and Before Adam.

His most famous works include The Call of the Wild and White Fang, both set in Alaska and the Yukon during the Klondike Gold Rush, as well as the short stories "To Build a Fire", "An Odyssey of the North", and "Love of Life". He also wrote about the South Pacific in stories such as "The Pearls of Parlay" and "The Heathen".

Reviews

[C · Rating 3 out of 5]

The bits at the beginning and the end are absolutely fantastic pieces of writing. This Jack London guy, he's all right. Particularly at the end, there's a portion from his write-up (as an eyewitness) of the destruction of San Francisco by fire after the earthquake in 1906 that's just heartbreaking. "And yet it was doomed, all of it. There was no water. The dynamite was giving out. And at right angles two conflagrations were sweeping down on it."

That's about the heart of San Francisco, countless skyscrapers and historic buildings. Man.

[Emily Silva · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love California history. This book covers Northern California. Jack London does an amazing job capturing where I am from. The only part I could do without, was the sailing/fishing stories!