Showing results for "The Sea Wolf" in Literary Fiction

First published in 1904 and one of Jack London's most famous works, The Sea Wolf is a thrilling psychological adventure novel that has been adapted several times for the big screen. When Humphrey Van Weyden, a refined gentleman and literary critic, is rescued from a shipwreck, he finds himself trapped aboard the Ghost, a seal-hunting boat captained by the brutal yet brilliant Wolf Larsen. Fiercely astute, ruthless and at times amoral, Larsen forces Van Weyden into arduous labour amongst the violent crew of the ship.

When the San Francisco ferry called Martinez collides with another ship in the fog and sinks, Humphrey Van Weyden, an intellectual and well-known literary critic, is one of the “lucky” survivors, set adrift in the Bay. He is eventually found by "Wolf" Larsen, the brutal and cynical sea captain of a seal-hunting schooner called the Ghost.

The Sea-Wolf is a 1904 psychological adventure novel by American writer Jack London. The book's protagonist, Humphrey van Weyden, is a literary critic who is a survivor of an ocean collision and who comes under the dominance of Wolf Larsen, the powerful and amoral sea captain who rescues him. Its first printing of forty thousand copies was immediately sold out before publication on the strength of London's previous The Call of the Wild.

Torn by a quirk of fate from his life as a dilettante and intellectual, Humphrey van Weydon finds himself at the whim of the ruthless Wolf Larsen. The 2 men - the one youthful, idealistic, and upper-class, the other ruthless, dangerous, self-taught, and self-determined - inevitably become adversaries. As he does in Call of the Wild and White Fang, Jack London dramatizes in this story the violent encounter between safe, genteel comfort and a brutal set of circumstances.