Burning Daylight cover

Burning Daylight

Rating 3.9
Word count
631K words
Chapters
64

Tags

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Burning Daylight by Jack LondonAuthor: London, Jack, 1876-1916,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Dec 1, 1996

Editor's review

Burning Daylight is a novel by Jack London set against the Klondike Gold Rush and the business world of San Francisco; through the protagonist's journey from the wilderness to the capital markets, it dramatizes the tension between personal striving and the values one chooses. London is known for a gritty, direct style in depicting polar environments and human desire, and this book continues his adventure narrative while extending its scope to competition and maneuvering in the commercial world, setting frontier survival against urban enterprise. For readers interested in the wilderness-versus-civilization theme in American literature and in London's mid-career development, it offers a perspective different from The Call of the Wild and The Sea-Wolf. The Project Gutenberg edition is easy to search and read through, making it suitable as supplementary reading for English literature courses or for extracurricular reading by those with a solid foundation in English.

Who it's for

A good fit for

  • Readers who enjoy Jack London and want to explore his longer fiction
  • Literature lovers interested in the American gold rush and frontier-to-city themes
  • English majors or students in American literature courses who need unadapted texts for extensive reading
  • Readers who use free ebooks and want low-cost access to public-domain classics

Not a good fit for

  • Beginning readers who want a Chinese translation or a bilingual edition
  • Readers who prefer short, fast-paced narratives and struggle to finish long novels
  • Readers who find the English original difficult and need detailed annotations

Reading tips

  1. First read chapter summaries to grasp the plot's movement from wilderness to city, then read key scenes closely chapter by chapter.
  2. While reading, note the contrast between nature descriptions and business negotiation scenes, and track changes in the protagonist's values.
  3. Read alongside London's other wilderness works to compare differences in narrative focus and characterization.
  4. If your English is limited, first read through with a vocabulary list, then return to the dialogue and psychological passages for close reading.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51
  52. 52
  53. 53
  54. 54
  55. 55
  56. 56
  57. 57
  58. 58
  59. 59
  60. 60
  61. 61
  62. 62
  63. 63
  64. 64

FAQ

What English level is this book suitable for?
The original is early twentieth-century English; sentence structure and vocabulary are generally straightforward but include slang and business terms of the period. Readers with CET-4 or above who are used to reading English novels will find it accessible; those with less reading experience may benefit from a vocabulary list or selected chapters.
What are the features of the Project Gutenberg edition?
This is a public-domain ebook released by Project Gutenberg, intended for free reading and searching, usually in plain text or several electronic formats. It lacks modern publishers' introductions and annotations, making it suitable for self-directed reading and convenient for copying, printing, and classroom distribution.
Do I need to know the history of the gold rush before reading?
Prior systematic study is not necessary, but some basic background on the Klondike Gold Rush helps with the novel's opening wilderness-survival episodes. The business-competition passages are relatively self-contained, and readers can fill in historical context as they go.
Is this book suitable as reading material for English classes?
It can serve as supplementary material for American literature or extensive reading courses, especially for discussing the wilderness-versus-civilization theme. Since the public-domain ebook lacks annotations, teachers using it in class should prepare background materials, key vocabulary, and discussion questions.

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About the author

Jack London Author · American · 1876–1916

Jack London (1876–1916) was an American realist writer born in San Francisco; his original name was John Griffith Chaney. He left school early to make a living, worked as a sailor and a tramp, and once went to Alaska to search for gold. These hard experiences became an important source of his writing. His works cover a wide range of subjects and often focus on the harsh struggle for survival in the northern wilderness, the relationship between humans and animals, and the misery of the lower classes. His style is vigorous and forceful, his plots are tightly constructed, and his writing combines adventure with social criticism. His representative works include The Call of the Wild, The Sea-Wolf, White Fang and Martin Eden. The library holds 91 of his works, including White Fang, Martin Eden, The Iron Heel and The People of the Abyss. He wrote about 50 works in his lifetime and is one of the most widely translated American writers of the twentieth century.

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