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| The Sea-Wolf (Tor Classics) | 
| Author: Jack London
Publisher: Tor Classics
Category: Book
List Price: $3.99
Buy Used: $0.01
You Save: $3.98 (100%)
New (21) from $1.14
Avg. Customer Rating:  86 reviews
Sales Rank: 1802965
Media: Mass Market Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 6.8 x 4.1 x 0.9
ISBN: 0812522761
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.52
EAN: 9780812522761
ASIN: 0812522761
Publication Date: September 15, 1993
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Help save a tree. Buy all your used books from Green Earth Books. Read -> Recycle -> Reuse!
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Product Description
Tor Classics are affordably-priced editions designed to attract the young reader. Original dynamic cover art enthusiastically represents the excitement of each story. Appropriate "reader friendly" type sizes have been chosen for each title—offering clear, accurate, and readable text. All editions are complete and unabridged, and feature Introductions and Afterwords.
This edition of The Sea-Wolf includes a Foreword, Biographical Note, and Afterword by the Publisher.
Shipwrecked during a weekend pleasure cruise, gentleman scholar Humphrey Van Weyden thinks his mysterious rescuers have saved his life.
he's wrong.
Van Weyden's trapped abroad the Ghost--a seal-hunting schooner crewed by the most desperate, brutal outcasts of the Pacific. Ghost's evil captain, Wolf Larsen--The Sea-Wolf--is murderous tyrant who uses his superhuman strength to torture and destroy, his brilliant mind to invent sick games, and his relentless will to control his mutinous crew.
Each new day bring Van Weyden pain he'd never imagined. Escape is impossible. On deck flooded with the blood of the seal slaughter, he must battle a savage genius not just for his life--but for the last tattered shreds of his own soul.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 81 more reviews...
 excellent read! November 10, 2008
The Seawolf is a great story, definitely written in the early 1900s style, similar to Jules Verne, etc. In a way, it makes you want to be out on the open sea!
One of my favorites October 12, 2008
The Sea Wolf contains familiar themes of other Jack London books. Man (or animal) from a comfortable background thrown into in a life and death struggle with the forces of nature due to a bad twist of fate.
Also the Wolf Larsen characters philosophizing in this book led many to believe that the book Might is Right (which Anton Lavey later plaigarized and renamed The Satanic Bible) was ghostwritten by Jack London. I dont believe London wrote Might is Right because after doing the math he would have had to have been a teenager when he wrote it however I do think its possible that he read it and the rants in it may have influenced him and his creation of Wolf Larsen. I saw a documentary on Lavey where he talked about what a profound influence the Wolf Larsen character in the Sea Wolf was on his own personal outlook.
Overall this is one of my favorite books. Anybody that appreciates Jack Londons other work should read this.
 Seawolf May 31, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
My son needed this book for assigned reading at school. The book quality itself is as with any new book, perfect. As for the story line, like I said, it was assigned reading. Jack London has written some classic stories, but I can't say they are considered to be among the books that your child "just can't put down" while reading.. (except for the fact that we won't let them put it down until they are done with the assignment) My son is in 6th grade, but I believe this book is most likely for 8th grade or higher when given as assigned reading for school, since he goes to a gifted school. They typically read books 2 - 3 grade years ahead in his classes. It will go on the book shelf in our home library among the classics, though not among the most cherished for enjoyment.
Intense and seaching May 22, 2008
I wish I had read this book in high school. I didn't get to it until much later in life. London knows his subject and in this case it's the conflict of man versus man, philosophy versus philosophy wrapped in a case of a diabolical captain against a gentleman. The discourses between these two never bog down and the action on the sea and land alike are edge of the seat brilliant. Take one side or the other, but you will be left searching your soul after reading this intense classic by a master of the writing craft.
London's great sea tale March 9, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
What Jack London sought to depict in many of his short stories and novels was the realistic, unforgiving brutality associated with man and nature, and, in this regard, The Sea Wolf does not disappoint. The first conflict comes when Humphrey Van Weyden is rescued by a boat after an accident, but little does the protagonist know what he is truly in for, as he will experience a figurative Hell for a good deal of time on board the Ghost. Juxtaposed by Wolf Larson, a character inspired by Milton's Lucifer in Paradise Lost, Van Weyden, a simple "bookish" literary man of thirty-five, must transform in order to sustain a barbaric and eye-opening ride.
Perhaps what separates Wolf Larson from your prototypical villain is that there are moments where Van Weyden can see the philosophical, profound, well-read side of the captain. While the two are as far apart as any two characters can be in their beliefs, backgrounds, or physical appearance, they seem to be on a parallel plane when it comes to their talks about Man's existence, despite the fact that they "agree to disagree" on these various subjects.
The book's most prevalent theme is survival--physically and psychologically. Van Weyden transforms himself somewhat in order to exist, yet he is not consumed by the savagery he witnesses aboard the Ghost. While he has a hard time acting on instincts, there is one point where there is a revolt from Larson in his conscience, which separates any notion that he will give in: "Wolf Larson it was, always Wolf Larson, enslaver and tormentor of men, a male Circe and these his swine, suffering brutes that groveled before him and revolted only in drunkenness and secrecy. And was I, too, one of his swine? ...No!...I would work my will through it all, in spite of Wolf Larson...All would be well." Yet, ironically, much of what Van Weyden learns from what he witnesses from Larson and the other men is critical in his survival later on.
Another impressive element is London's command of description and detail. He has a way of illustrating a moment of peril, or foreshadowing, or profiling a character. One example is Van Weyden's commentary while looking out to see, while thinking about the Ghost's fate: "I, too, leaned upon the rail and gazed longingly into the sea, with the certainty that sooner or later I should be sinking down, down, through the cool green depths of its oblivion." The protagonist seems to know that something is amiss with the Ghost, and, like Melville's Pequod in Moby Dick, there is an ominous feeling on doom on board.
One criticism is the later part of the novel, where it gets a little too romanticized and lovey-dovey with Maud and Humphrey. It just seemed a little too forced. Some of the parts seemed to lag a little also towards the end, and the descriptions got a little too detailed about how to prepare a vessel for voyage off of Endeavor Island.
Still, over all, it was an impressive read. If you're looking for a book about courage and survival, then this is a great book to check out!
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