4 h 21 minAudiobook4 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 4 h 21 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if a sound in the jungle draws you farther than your sense of danger allows?
In Jack London's The Red One, an unexplained sound draws English naturalist Bassett deep into the jungle of Guadalcanal. He comes to collect specimens, measure, and record. Now he wants to find the source of something he cannot explain. But the jungle holds villages whose people take heads and distrust strangers. His search carries him beyond safety.
This collection brings together four tales of adventure and obsession, with the title story setting science against awe. London writes in clear, strong sentences, filling the world with heat, sweat, insects, and danger. His people push past safety to pursue what they cannot let go. Action carries the ideas, and danger and violence appear without softening.
What you’ll discover
- A sound without explanation Follow Bassett's search through the jungle toward a mystery that holds his attention.
- Science meets awe Explore the tension between a naturalist's habit of measuring and the wonder he encounters.
- The pull of obsession Meet people whose pursuit of what matters to them takes them beyond safety.
- Heat, sweat, and danger Step into sharp jungle detail, where insects and danger give the search a physical edge.
- Stories with a hard edge Discover adventure told directly, with strong sentences and ideas carried through action.
Who will love it
For readers who love sea and jungle adventure, strange ideas and short fiction where danger, obsession and the unknown draw people beyond safety.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A sound calls a scientist into the jungle
- The hunt for the source grows into obsession
- Two ways of seeing the same wonder
- A rough, direct style and a wider book
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- 15-minute summary
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- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
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- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
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Der Rote
by Jack London · 1918
A strange sound draws a naturalist into the Guadalcanal jungle, where curiosity pulls him beyond safety.
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In short
The Red One is a collection of stories by Jack London, published in 1918, two years after his death in 1916. London was an American writer who had sailed the South Pacific, prospected in the far north and written about both with a sailor's eye.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A sound calls a scientist into the jungle
The title story opens on Guadalcanal, an island in the Solomons, where an English naturalist named Bassett is collecting specimens. He is a patient and educated man, the kind who measures and records. Yet something in the forest has taken hold of him. A deep, ringing note rolls out of the interior again and again, and he cannot place it.
Bassett has already paid heavily for his work on the island. Fever has marked him, and the people of the coast have reasons to fear the bush. Still, the sound will not let him rest. It is not like any animal call or any drum he knows.
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What is The Red One by Jack London about?
The title story follows an English naturalist on Guadalcanal who is drawn into the jungle by a strange booming sound. It deals with obsession, the limits of science and the clash between European and island ways of seeing.
When was The Red One published?
The collection appeared in 1918, after Jack London died in 1916. It brings together stories he wrote in his later years, many with South Pacific and adventure settings.
Is The Red One a true story?
No, it is fiction. London did sail the Solomon Islands and knew their dangers firsthand, so the settings and details of tropical life come from real experience, but the characters and events are invented.
The author
Jack London
1876–1916 · American novelist and journalist
Jack London (1876–1916) was an American author, journalist and social activist. He was born in San Francisco and lived in California. He wrote novels, short stories and essays. His novels include The Call of the Wild (1903), The Sea-Wolf (1904), White Fang (1906) and Martin Eden (1909). He died in California.
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