Before Adam

by Jack London

Overview

Before Adam is Jack London’s fictional tour de force. In it, he brilliantly recreates the dawn of humanity, depicting the prehistoric world as a place of dark conflict where only the fittest will survive. Tormented by a succession of terrifying dreams, the narrator is faced with the strange truth that his consciousness has become entwined with that of Big-Tooth, his mid-Pleistocene ancestor. Through these dream memories, he witnesses Big-Tooth’s life as one of the “Folk” race—a life without developed language, social structure, or fire. He sees, too, the Folk’s fierce battles for survival against the more advanced Fire People and the primitive Tree People. As he struggles to make sense of Big-Tooth’s world, he begins questioning the very notion of eugenics, making Before Adam one of the most pertinent works of its time. American writer Jack London is the author of some of the finest naturalistic adventure stories of the 20th century, most memorably The Call of the Wild.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781547058921
Publisher:	CreateSpace Publishing
Publication date:	05/31/2017
Pages:	56
Product dimensions:	8.50(w) x 11.02(h) x 0.12(d)

About the Author

Jack London (1876-1916) was an American novelist and journalist. Dropping out at age twenty-one for personal reasons, London was a temporary student at the University of California, Berkley. Later London attributed his intelligence and talent to be mostly self-taught. He humored several trades before settling as an author, including joining a fishing boat and the California Gold Rush. London later became one of the first American authors to gain celebrity and a fortune primarily from his writing career; his prolific works still inspire adaptations today.

Table of Contents

	Before Adam	1
	Notes	121
	Biographical note	123

Editorial Reviews

London is far from the Yukon in this story, which was first serialized in 1906. In a way, it's London's take on the jungle man theme made popular first by Kipling's The Jungle Books and Burroughs's Tarzan. The story follows a California man who experiences visions of a prehistoric society led by Big-Tooth, who actually is the protagonist. This edition contains a map of Big-Tooth's world as well as numerous illustrations. Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\

Library Journal

• "Here were we, drawn together by mutual rage and the impulse toward cooperation, led off into forgetfulness by the establishment of a rude rhythm."
• "As imagination grew it is likely that the fear of death increased until the Folk that were to come projected this fear into the dark and peopled it with spirits."

—Jack London "Before Adam"

From the Publisher

"Students of early science fiction will welcome the University of Nebraska Press's series Bison Frontiers of Imagination."—Times Literary Supplement

Times Literary Supplement