Story summary
Samenvatting van De Dagbreker
- 8 min. leestijd
- 11 parts
- Binnenkort te beluisteren
A bold gambler stakes his fortune on a hunch, then races two thousand miles of frozen trail for a wager.
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De Dagbreker in het kort
Samenvatting: 8 min leestijd
- Leestijd
- Ongeveer 7 h 30 min6 h fast, 8 h 55 min slow
- Lengte
- 107.400 woorden
- Bibliotheekniveau
- Gemiddeld longer sentences, everyday words
- Voor het eerst verschenen
- 1910by Jack London
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). Hoelang het duurt om de klassiekers te lezen · Bijgewerkt
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De Dagbreker in short
Burning Daylight is the story of a man who is most alive when he risks everything. In the Yukon, that risk makes him a legend. He crosses ice, survives famine, finds gold, and builds a fortune by strength, stubbornness, and a hunch.
What De Dagbreker is about
It is sixty degrees below zero outside a saloon in Circle City, and the room inside is dead. Then the door swings open, a cloud of frost rolls across the floor, and the fiddler plays faster.
Burning Daylight Harnish is the hero of Jack London's novel, first published in 1910. London sets him in the Yukon gold country, then follows him south to California, where a different kind of wilderness waits. The book asks what a man gains when he wins everything, and what he loses on the way.
Voor wie is het?. Readers who enjoy frontier adventure, gold camps, poker tables, and daring businessmen will love this novel. It also suits admirers of Call of the Wild and love stories that question what makes a life worthwhile.
The story in 11 parts
Key idea 1 · free to read
A dead saloon wakes up when Daylight arrives
Circle City is a mining camp on the Yukon in the Arctic winter, and the saloon called the Shovel is quiet. The miners are in from the creeks with full pouches and nothing to do. The Virgin, a young dance hall woman, yawns and asks if everybody is dead. Then Elam Harnish steps in from the frost, and the whole room changes.
Everyone calls him Burning Daylight, because he once rousted his companions from their blankets since daylight was burning. He crossed the Chilcoot Pass at eighteen and has searched for gold for twelve years. Tomorrow he turns thirty, and he calls the whole house to drink on his gold dust.
Daylight treats life as a gamble, and a man must risk everything or lose. He fears women, who he believes tie a man down with apron strings. The Virgin, who loves him, learns that he slips away from every tug on his arm.
Daylight is made for the big bet, and the book will test what that costs him.
- 2Begin gratis met lezen
One poker hand takes all that he owns
At two in the morning, Jack Kearns suggests poker.
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A sixty day mail run tests his iron body
At six in the morning Daylight is still on his feet.
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A hunch sends him up the Stewart
On the trail Daylight keeps looking at the flat where the Klondike meets the Yukon.
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Famine and spring ice nearly end him
The two men pan the snow around the ruined cache for flour.
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The Bonanza strike makes him a king
After Daylight recovers, he prospects Indian River and visits Carmack before the Bonanza discovery is announced.
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The city teaches him treachery and revenge
Daylight arrives in San Francisco with his Klondike fame, but enters a financial world whose rules he must learn.
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A stenographer pulls him toward another life
Dede Mason works in his office, and for years he barely sees her.
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The book asks what money and work are worth
Daylight believes the world is a vast gamble, run by a mad god called Luck.
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Nature, the body, and love pull him home
The book keeps returning to wild country.
- 11Begin gratis met lezen
How London tells the story and why it moves
London tells the story in a confident, direct voice, with a narrator who knows more than Daylight.
Read all 11 key ideas now
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Characters, plot and themes
Main characters
- Elam Harnish, called Burning Daylight A Yukon pioneer of enormous strength who gambles on hunches, builds a fortune, and fears being tied down by love.
- Dede Mason A quick, honest stenographer and fine horsewoman who admires Daylight but will not marry a man owned by his money.
- Kama A Tananaw dog driver who runs the mail with Daylight and comes to worship his endurance.
- The Virgin A dance hall woman in Circle City who loves Daylight and cannot make him see her as more than a friend.
- Elijah Davis A lean New Englander and Daylight's partner up the Stewart River, who shares the famine with him.
- Larry Hegan Daylight's brilliant, bookish Irish lawyer, who plans his legal wars and is his one close friend in the city.
- John Dowsett A powerful banker with a warm manner who leads the plan to catch Daylight in a copper stock scheme.
- Ferguson A former newspaper editor who left the city for a cabin full of books in the hills and regained his health.
How it ends (spoiler)
Daylight gives up his empire. He lets the Oakland business fail, protects his friends and creditors, and leaves with almost nothing. Dede refuses at first, but she marries him, and they settle on his small ranch at Glen Ellen in the Valley of the Moon. There he grows lean and strong again, and he loses his craving for drink. One day he finds a rich gold vein in a landslide on the canyon wall. The old fever grips him until he hears Dede calling the chickens. He covers the vein with earth and chooses her and the ranch.
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Vragen over De Dagbreker
What is Burning Daylight about?
It follows Elam Harnish, known as Burning Daylight, a Yukon gold miner who becomes a millionaire in the Klondike, is betrayed in the city, and must choose between his business empire and the woman he loves.
Who is Burning Daylight in the book?
Burning Daylight is the nickname of Elam Harnish. He earned it in the early Yukon days by waking his companions at dawn, saying daylight was burning. He is a strong, bold pioneer, miner, and gambler.
Is Burning Daylight based on a true story?
It is a novel, first published in 1910. Jack London drew on the real Klondike gold rush of the 1890s and his own time in the North, but Elam Harnish and his story are fictional.
Is Burning Daylight easy to read?
It moves with a lively plot, vivid scenes, and plain, energetic language. Poker nights, winter trail races, a Wall Street ambush, and a courtship on horseback keep the story clear and easy to follow.
What is the main message of Burning Daylight?
The book argues that money and power do not bring happiness unless a person also creates something and keeps close to love and nature. Daylight must learn what a good life is worth.
Verwijs naar deze uitgave
London, Jack. Burning Daylight. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/burning-daylight.
London, J. (2026). Burning Daylight. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/burning-daylight (Original work published 1910)
London, Jack. Burning Daylight. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/burning-daylight.
@book{london2026burning,
author = {London, Jack},
title = {Burning Daylight},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/burning-daylight},
note = {First published 1910}
}
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