Name: Burning Daylight
SKU: 61533405
Price: 24.83 EUR
Availability: InStock
Author: London, Jack
ISBN: 9781544074801

Type

Physical Book

Author

Jack London

Publisher

Createspace

Language

English

Pages

298

Format

Paperback

Dimensions

22.9x15.2x1.6 cm

Weight

0.40 kg.

ISBN13

9781544074801

Synopsis "Burning Daylight"

It was a quiet night in the Shovel. At the bar, which ranged along one side of the large chinked-log room, leaned half a dozen men, two of whom were discussing the relative merits of spruce-tea and lime-juice as remedies for scurvy. They argued with an air of depression and with intervals of morose silence. The other men scarcely heeded them. In a row, against the opposite wall, were the gambling games. The crap-table was deserted. One lone man was playing at the faro-table. The roulette-ball was not even spinning, and the gamekeeper stood by the roaring, red-hot stove, talking with the young, dark-eyed woman, comely of face and figure, who was known from Juneau to Fort Yukon as the Virgin. Three men sat in at stud-poker, but they played with small chips and without enthusiasm, while there were no onlookers. On the floor of the dancing-room, which opened out at the rear, three couples were waltzing drearily to the strains of a violin and a piano. Circle City was not deserted, nor was money tight. The miners were in from Moseyed Creek and the other diggings to the west, the summer washing had been good, and the men's pouches were heavy with dust and nuggets. The Klondike had not yet been discovered, nor had the miners of the Yukon learned the possibilities of deep digging and wood-firing. No work was done in the winter, and they made a practice of hibernating in the large camps like Circle City during the long Arctic night. Time was heavy on their hands, their pouches were well filled, and the only social diversion to be found was in the saloons. Yet the Shovel was practically deserted, and the Virgin, standing by the stove, yawned with uncovered mouth and said to Charley Bates: - "If something don't happen soon, I'm gin' to bed. What's the matter with the camp, anyway? Everybody dead?" Bates did not even trouble to reply, but went on moodily rolling a cigarette. Dan MacDonald, pioneer saloonman and gambler on the upper Yukon, owner and proprietor of the Tivoli and all its games, wandered forlornly across the great vacant space of floor and joined the two at the stove. "Anybody dead?" the Virgin asked him. "Looks like it," was the answer. "Then it must be the whole camp," she said with an air of finality and with another yawn. MacDonald grinned and nodded, and opened his mouth to speak, when the front door swung wide and a man appeared in the light.

Jack London

(Author)

View Author's Page

Jack London (1876-1916), pseudonym of John Griffith Chaney, is one of the great American writers of the early 20th century. His world is inspired by a very subjective interpretation of Nietzsche's philosophy and is built on the principle of survival of the fittest. Born in San Francisco, he was essentially a self-taught child who avidly read the collections of the public library. At seventeen, he embarked on his first schooner, heading to Japan. After several experiences as a sailor and vagabond -which also led to his imprisonment-, London attended Oakland High School and later, the University of California, which he had to leave due to financial problems. Like many, he suffered from gold fever until he finally turned to writing.

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