Jack London was a great author, known to generations of students as the author of The Call of the Wild. Recently I stumbled across his Mutiny on the Elsinore as a free e-book. It is a striking tale of violence and survival at sea.
Only after I finished the book did I have a look at the debate about London’s politics. He was writing in a pre-feminist and pre-PC time. You might well be offended if you read the book with modern sensibilities. Here’s a column about London’s racism; here’s a column about his strong socialist bent.
SPOILER ALERT! In Mutiny on the Elsinore, London frequently refers to himself and the other white individuals on board as being born to rule over the mixed-race sailors, qualified by race alone. Honestly, he took that so far that I thought he was parodying racist sentiments instead of extolling them. Maybe I should inform myself more about an author’s social context before reading — but, now that I think about it, I would have enjoyed the book less if I had.