Burning Daylight by Jack London Burning Daylight" was Jack London's bestselling book during his lifetime, yet amazingly since his death, the book has been totally neglected except for an occasional reprint, and currently it is again out of print. The book begins as a two-fisted macho adventure on the Klondike, as the hero --nicknamed Burning Daylight -- becomes the most successful entrepreneur during the Alaskan Gold Rush. However, after achieving his fame and fortune, he finds no more challenge in the north and heads to the States for new worlds to conquer. But, first he is flimflammed out of his fortune by Wall Streeters. However, he learns the lesson of dog-eat-dog and becomes as much of a scoundrel as those who robbed him. He ventures to California and envisions the future success of Oakland, buys property, sets up utilities and public transportation systems through overbearing and shady tactics. He begins to drink, starts to go soft in the belly, and loses his good looks and vitality. And then, for the first time, he falls in love. The last third of the book charmingly relates how a good woman turns a now bad man around. It is a love story. A rousing adventure. A Trieste on the ills of big business. All superbly written by Jack London. It's easy to see why this book was so popular in London's day. The story of an adventurer who went to Alaska and laid the foundations of his fortune before the gold hunters arrived. Bringing his fortunes to the States he is cheated out of it by a crowd of money kings, and recovers it only at the muzzle of his gun. He then starts out as a merciless exploiter on his own account. Finally he takes to drinking and becomes a picture of degeneration. About this time he falls in love with his stenographer and wins her heart but not her hand and then--but read the story! Jack London (1876-1916), was an American author and a pioneer in the then-burgeoning world of commercial magazine fiction. He was one of the first Americans to make a lucrative career exclusively from writing. London was self-educated. He taught himself in the public library, mainly just by reading books. In 1898, he began struggling seriously to break into print, a struggle memorably described in his novel, Martin Eden (1909). Jack London was fortunate in the timing of his writing career. He started just as new printing technologies enabled lower-cost production of magazines. This resulted in a boom in popular magazines aimed at a wide public, and a strong market for short fiction. In 1900, he made $2,500 in writing, the equivalent of about $75,000 today. His career was well under way. Among his famous works are: Children of the Frost (1902), The Call of the Wild (1903), The Sea Wolf (1904), The Game (1905), White Fang (1906), The Road (1907), Before Adam (1907), Adventure (1911), and The Scarlet Plague (1912).

2.99 USD InStock