MARTIN EDEN
$13.75
Skip to product information
MARTIN EDEN is a 1909 novel by American writer, JACK LONDON, about a young sailor who has left the sea and his struggles to become a writer. It was first serialized in THE PACIFIC MONTHLY magazine from September 1908 to September 1909 and then published in book form by MACMILLAN in September 1909.
In this semi-autobiographical novel, Eden represents writers' frustration with publishers. The central theme of Eden's developing artistic sensibilities places the novel in the tradition of the Künstlerroman, which narrates an artist's formation and development.
Eden differs from London in rejecting socialism, attacking it as "slave morality" and relying on Nietzschean individualism. Nevertheless, in the copy of the novel which he inscribed for Upton Sinclair, London wrote, "One of my motifs, in this book, was an attack on individualism (in the person of the hero). I must have bungled it, for not a single reviewer has discovered it."
Several films have been based on the book: the first in 1914; the second, The Adventures of Martin Eden, directed by Sidney Salkow in 1942; a third, Martin Eden, directed by Pietro Marcello and set in Naples, in 2019; a fourth in 2020 by independent filmmaker Jay Craven.
MARTIN EDEN
$13.75