Wanderer Through the Stars, or The Straightjacket

A sailor, gold seeker, drifter, socialist, war correspondent, laborer, the highest-paid writer in the USA — there is no more romantic biography in all of American literature than that of Jack London. Having lived only forty years, he left behind over forty books written in various genres. In this collection, Jack London does not stray from his usual role as an author of works in which strong and selfless heroes endure harsh life trials, but at the same time he presents himself as a dreamer and fantasist, wandering through imagined worlds of possible pasts and futures. Thus, the hero of the novel "Wanderer Through the Stars, or The Straightjacket" acquires a remarkable ability to liberate the subconscious and travel through different epochs, reliving his past lives; in the novel "The Iron Heel" we are spoken to by a narrator from the distant 27th century, commenting on the notes of a girl from the 20th century; the events of the novel "The Scarlet Plague" pertain to the 21st century, where it discusses a catastrophe that has befallen humanity; the hero of the story "Before Adam" reconstructs the life of his distant ancestor from fragments of dreams. Alternating humor and drama, Jack London narrates the barbaric underside of the modern era, the primal chaos of passions lying beneath the thin veneer of human culture, the "call of the ancestors" discernible through many centuries of world history, and the eternal cycle of times.