Jack London

A Daughter of the Snow: Illustrated Jack London

Publisher Marketing: A Daughter of the Snows is Jack London's first novel. The novel features a strong female heroine, Frona Welse. Frona was born into a wealthy family and educated at Stanford but she takes to the Yukon trail after upsetting her father and his wealthy community of friends with her out-spoken ways and her innocent friendship with the town's prostitute. "All ready, Miss Welse, though I'm sorry we can't spare one of the steamer's boats." Frona Welse arose with alacrity and came to the first officer's side. "We're so busy," he explained, "and gold-rushers are such perishable freight, at least-" "I understand," she interrupted, "and I, too, am behaving as though I were perishable. And I am sorry for the trouble I am giving you, but-but-" She turned quickly and pointed to the shore. "Do you see that big log-house? Between the clump of pines and the river? I was born there." "Guess I'd be in a hurry myself," he muttered, sympathetically, as he piloted her along the crowded deck. Everybody was in everybody else's way; nor was there one who failed to proclaim it at the top of his lungs. A thousand gold-seekers were clamoring for the immediate landing of their outfits. Each hatchway gaped wide open, and from the lower depths the shrieking donkey-engines were hurrying the misassorted outfits skyward. On either side of the steamer, rows of scows received the flying cargo, and on each of these scows a sweating mob of men charged the descending slings and heaved bales and boxes about in frantic search. Men waved shipping receipts and shouted over the steamer-rails to them. Sometimes two and three identified the same article, and war arose. The "two-circle" and the "circle-and-dot" brands caused endless jangling, while every whipsaw discovered a dozen claimants. "The purser insists that he is going mad," the first officer said, as he helped Frona Welse down the gangway to the landing stage, "and the freight clerks have turned the cargo over to the passengers and quit work. But we're not so unlucky as the Star of Bethlehem," he reassured her, pointing to a steamship at anchor a quarter of a mile away. "Half of her passengers have pack-horses for Skaguay and White Pass, and the other half are bound over the Chilcoot. So they've mutinied and everything's at a standstill." "Hey, you!" he cried, beckoning to a Whitehall which hovered discreetly on the outer rim of the floating confusion. A tiny launch, pulling heroically at a huge tow-barge, attempted to pass between; but the boatman shot nervily across her bow, and just as he was clear, unfortunately, caught a crab. This slewed the boat around and brought it to a stop. "Watch out!" the first officer shouted. Contributor Bio:  London, Jack Jack London (1876-1916) was an American writer who produced two hundred short stories, more than four hundred nonfiction pieces, twenty novels, and three full-length plays in less than two decades. His best-known works include The Call of the Wild, The Sea Wolf, and White Fang. Contributor Bio:  Ukray, Murat Walter Crane (Liverpool, 1845 - 1915, Horsham) was an English artist and book illustrator. He is considered to be the most influential, and among the most prolific, children's book creator of his generation and, along with Randolph Caldecott and Kate Greenaway, one of the strongest contributors to the child's nursery motif that the genre of English children's illustrated literature would exhibit in its developmental stages in the latter 19th century. His work featured some of the more colourful and detailed beginnings of the child-in-the-garden motifs that would characterize many nursery rhymes and children's stories for decades to come. He was part of the Arts and Crafts movement and produced an array of paintings, illustrations, children's books, ceramic tiles and other decorative arts.