Zusammenfassung
Zusammenfassung von Das Tal des Mondes
Go deeper: the whole of Das Tal des Mondes
About 11 h 50 min to read.Für wen es gedacht ist
You will love this if you like a love story that walks the open road, enjoy old California scenery, or want a novel where working people argue about land and labor.
Worum es in diesem Buch geht
Saxon Brown irons fine blouses in a steaming Oakland laundry. Beside her, an older woman cracks under the heat, screams, and is dragged out, and the irons keep rising and falling.
The Valley of the Moon is a novel by Jack London. It follows Saxon and a teamster named Billy Roberts from a Sunday picnic in Oakland, through a marriage tested by labor wars, and out onto the roads of California. You get a love story, a close look at work and land, and a heroine who thinks.
In dieser Zusammenfassung
- 1A laundry girl longs for something moreFree
- 2A picnic dance and a brawl begin the romance
- 3Courtship, a proposal, and a quick wedding
- 4Happy months and a lesson from Mercedes
- 5The strike comes to Pine Street
- 6Hard times turn a gentle husband into a stranger
- 7A movie farmyard sends them out of Oakland
- 8The road teaches them about land and who works it
- 9Carmel shows them a life of play and big ideas
- 10Old stock, fun, and the meaning of work
- 11How the story is told and what the valley means
Punkt 1 von 11
A laundry girl longs for something more
The story opens in the starch room of an Oakland laundry. Saxon works a hot fluting iron with delicate, swift movements, and she is proud of every cent of her wages.
The heat is cruel. A stout older woman, worn down by years of this work, screams and falls to the floor. The other women lose a few precious movements to look, then bend to their boards again, because every lost movement costs money.
Home is no better. Saxon lives with her brother Tom and his wife Sarah, whose life has narrowed to babies, bills and bitterness. In her small room, Saxon keeps her dead mother's poems and a little red satin girdle, and she touches them like a believer at an altar. She goes to the Bricklayers' picnic to dance, and she wonders whether one of the gentlemen there could be the man. Saxon's life shows how little room a working girl has, and how much she still wants.
That’s 1 of 11 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
- Nothing to pay today · Renews every year
- We email you before you pay
- Cancel online in two clicks
Go deeper: the whole of Das Tal des Mondes
About 11 h 50 min to read.Who’s who
- Saxon Brown
- A quick, proud laundry ironer who longs for beauty, a loving husband and a home on good land.
- Billy Roberts
- A powerful teamster and former prizefighter with a short temper, a gift with horses and a tender heart.
- Mary
- Saxon's friend at the laundry, high-strung and eager to marry Bert, who fears the world's dirt.
- Bert Wanhope
- Mary's lover and Billy's friend, a quick, bitter talker who calls the old settlers the last of the Mohegans.
- Mercedes Higgins
- Saxon's strange old neighbor who teaches her fine washing, love's tricks and a hard view of the world.
- Mrs. Mortimer
- A widowed former librarian who makes a small farm pay by study and charm, and befriends the couple.
- Mark Hall
- A poet and sportsman in Carmel who leads the Abalone Eaters and teases the couple about their valley.
- Charley Long
- A big blacksmith who bullies Saxon and insists she will marry him.
About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 175,000 words
- Reading timeAbout 11 h 40 min
- FormatseBook, large-print eBook, audiobook, 15-minute summary
- LanguagesEnglish and 12 other languages
Questions about Das Tal des Mondes
What is The Valley of the Moon about?
It follows Saxon Brown, a laundry worker in Oakland, and her husband Billy Roberts, a teamster. After a labor war wrecks their early happiness, they leave the city and travel California looking for good land and a life that suits them.
What does the Valley of the Moon mean in the book?
It is the name Saxon and Billy give to the ideal place they hope to find, with water, trees, hills, sunshine and a balance of work and fun. The phrase starts as a joke from a poet friend.
Is The Valley of the Moon based on a true story?
It is a novel, but it draws on real California places and events, including Oakland strikes, farming communities and the Sonoma Valley, where London himself later lived. It was written in the early twentieth century.
Who is Saxon in The Valley of the Moon?
Saxon Brown is a quick, proud young laundry ironer, small and graceful, with a mother who wrote poems and crossed the plains. She is named for the ancient Saxons and becomes the thinking heart of the couple.
What is the main message of The Valley of the Moon?
The book suggests that people do best on land they can work with skill and enjoy, away from crowded cities. It also argues that love, fun and fair work matter more than getting rich.
Cite this edition
London, Jack. The Valley of the Moon. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-valley-of-the-moon.
London, J. (2026). The valley of the moon. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-valley-of-the-moon (Original work published 1913)
London, Jack. The Valley of the Moon. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-valley-of-the-moon.
@book{london2026valley,
author = {London, Jack},
title = {The Valley of the Moon},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-valley-of-the-moon},
note = {First published 1913}
}
