Standing Room Only (American University Studies Series 24, American Literature, Vol 14)

This entertaining and informative study examines author Jack London's oratorical career, which he began in 1895 as «the boy socialist» in Oakland, California, and continued almost until his death in late 1916. Mark E. Zamen has provided a thorough history of London's public addresses before widely varied audiences, from schoolchildren to the financial and intellectual elite, at small gatherings and huge mass meetings, and on topics from personal reminiscences to impassioned discourses on behalf of socialism. Though London's oratory garnered front-page headlines, and in editorials he was usually either lauded as a genius or condemned as a lunatic, he was rarely ignored once his auctorial skills had catapulted him to fame. Standing Room Only is a panorama of this hitherto nearly unknown aspect of London's multi-faceted life.