Reviews
“Jack London, Photographer demonstrates the truth of London’s claim to be a ‘professional photographer’ and provides readers with a fresh perspective, that of visual artistry, through which to view London’s writings.”
—Donna M. Campbell, author of Resisting Regionalism: Gender and Naturalism in American Fiction, 1885–1915
Description
Jack London (1876–1916) remains one of the most widely read American writers, known for his naturalist fiction, socialist novels and essays, journalism, and the many adventures that he shared with the world. London was also an accomplished photographer, producing nearly twelve thousand photographs during his lifetime. Jack London, Photographer, the first book devoted to London’s photography, reveals a vital dimension of his artistry, barely known until now.
London’s subjects included such peoples as the ragged homeless of London’s East End and the freezing refugees of the Russo-Japanese War, the latter photographed on assignment for the Hearst Syndicate. For Collier’s magazine, London wrote his eyewitness account of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire and returned two weeks later with his camera to document a city in ruins but slowly recovering. During his voyage aboard the Snark, London produced humane images of the South Seas islanders that contrasted dramatically with the…
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Jeanne Campbell Reesman (left) is a professor of English at the University of Texas, San Antonio. She is the author or editor of numerous works on London, including Jack London’s Racial Lives: A Critical Biography. Sara S. Hodson (center) is curator of literary manuscripts at the Huntington Library where she has administered the Jack London Papers for over thirty years. She is the co-editor, with Jeanne Reesman, of Jack London: One Hundred Years a Writer. Philip Adam (right) has worked with museums and cultural institutions in California for thirty years to preserve historical photographic collections. His original photographs are in the permanent collections of the Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley; University of California at Davis, Special Collections; the California State Library in Sacramento; and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
