Part science fiction, part dystopian fantasy, part radical socialist tract, Jack London's The Iron Heel offers a grim depiction of warfare between the classes in America and around the globe. Originally published nearly a hundred years ago, it anticipated many features of the past century, including the rise of fascism, the emergence of domestic terrorism, and the growth of centralized government surveillance and authority. What begins as a war of words ends in scenes of h...

When Jack London died in 1916 at age forty, he was one of the most famous writers of his time. Eighty years later he remains one of the most widely read American authors in the world. The first major critical study of London to appear in a decade, Male Call analyzes the nature of his appeal by closely examining how the struggling young writer sought to promote himself in his early work as a sympathetic, romantic man of letters whose charismatic masculinity could carry more signifi...

How and why did public opinion—long cherished as a foundation of democratic government—become an increasing source of concern for American Progressives?Following World War I, political commentator Walter Lippmann worried that citizens increasingly held inaccurate and misinformed beliefs because of the way information was produced, circulated, and received in a mass-mediated society. Lippmann dubbed this manipulative opinion-making process “the manufacture of consen...

Dark Borders connects anxieties about citizenship and national belonging in midcentury America to the sense of alienation conveyed by American film noir. Jonathan Auerbach provides in-depth interpretations of more than a dozen of these dark crime thrillers, considering them in relation to U.S. national security measures enacted from the mid-1930s to the mid-1950s. The growth of a domestic intelligence-gathering apparatus before, during, and after the Second World War raised unsett...

Like the characters in the popular dime novels of the time, London's heroes display such manly virtues as courage, loyalty, and steadfastness as they conftont the merciless frozen expanses of the north. Yet London breaks free of stereotypical figures and one-dimensional plots to explore deeper psychological and social questions of self-mastery, masculinity, and racial domination. The uneasy relationship between the Native Americans and whites lies at the heart of many of the stories, while...

This novella explores life following a devastating plague that wipes out most of humanity.

The Star Rover is a novel by American writer Jack London published in 1915 (published in the United Kingdom as The Jacket). It is a story of reincarnation.A framing story is told in the first person by Darrell Standing, a university professor serving life imprisonment in San Quentin State Prison for murder. Prison officials try to break his spirit by means of a torture device called "the jacket," a canvas jacket which can be tightly laced so as to compress the whole body, inducing ...

Frona Welse, born into a wealthy family and educated at Stanford, is a strong and courageous woman fought by men. After upsetting her community by her forthright manner and befriending the town's prostitute she will join the Klondike Gold Rush.

In one single pubblication all the six classic novels by the author of Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm. The lushly descriptive and tragic Burmese Days, a devastating indictment of British colonial rule, is based on Orwell's own experience while serving in the Indian Imperial Police. With A Clergyman's Daughter Orwell leads us through a landscape of unemployment, poverty and hunger, where Dorothy Hare's faith is challenged by a social reality that changes her life. His beloved satirica...

Night and Day (1919) is a novel by Virginia Woolf. Set in Edwardian London, Night and Day contrasts the daily lives of two friends, Katharine Hilbery and Mary Datchet. The novel examines the relationships between love, marriage, happiness, and success.There are four major characters, Katharine Hilbery, Mary Datchet, Ralph Denham, and William Rodney.Night and Day deals with issues concerning women's suffrage, if love and marriage can coexis...

"The Plague" by Albert Camus is a Camusian existentialist novel set in Algeria. It explores the absurdity of life through an epidemic that forces characters into isolation and existential crisis. As the epidemic spreads, suffering and death become pervasive, prompting profound philosophical reflection on morality and resilience within the quarantined community. Camus delves into the existential crisis faced by individuals confronted with the randomness of death and the isolation imposed by...

A masterpiece ahead of its time, a prescient rendering of a dark future, and the inspiration for the blockbuster film Blade RunnerBy 2021, the World War has killed millions, driving entire species into extinction and sending mankind off-planet. Those who remain covet any living creature, and for people who can’t afford one, companies built incredibly realistic simulacra: horses, birds, cats, sheep. They’ve even built humans. Immigrants to Mars receive andr...