The Star Rover (Literary Classics) [Paperback]

A magnificent literary accomplishment. (Irving Stone ) --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Novelist and short story writer Jack London (1876-1916) contemplated the strange theory of astral travel, penning "The Star Rover" in 1914. The last of London's fifty books, which include "White Fang" and "The Call of the Wild", "The Star Rover" centres on San Quentin prison inmate Darrell Standing, a former university professor who is serving a life sentence for murdering a colleague. To escape the tortures of his confinement, he withdraws into dreams of past lives in which he experiences what he calls his "eternal recurrence on earth." Thus the fantastic becomes a vehicle for exposing the social injustices of the U.S. prison system.One of America's great turn-of-the-century writers, London lived as a sailor, waterfront loafer, and hobo, embarking on a successful literary career based on his travels, observations of nature, and his outspoken position in the Socialist Party. Internationally recognised literary critic and essayist Leslie Fiedler, the former Samuel Clemens Professor at SUNY Buffalo, provides an insightful introduction to this lost classic.

Inspired by his friend Ed Morell, who spent five years in the barbaric San Quentin jail, The Star Rover is a searing indictment of a violent and corrupt penal system. Describing the brutality of a life behind bars, it explores the power of imagination to transcend physical hardship, and ultimately sustain hope.

This new Rebel Inc. edition has specially commissioned pieces by two Scottish lifers who have experienced at first-hand the inhumanity of prison life. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Jack London (1876–1916) was born in San Francisco and became a political activist and socialist at an early age. His first real literary success came in 1903 with The Call of the Wild, which became an immediate bestseller. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.