Full Join professional lecturer and lifelong Jack London fan Dr. John Freedman for a dynamic review of Jack and Charmian’s South Pacific and Hawaii adventures and their rich literary legacy. We’ll set the stage with an interdisciplinary overview of the mighty Pacific and a look at the literary forebears that preceded and attracted the Londons to this storied region. We will then turn our focus to the voyage of the Snark and the two subsequent trips to Hawaii and see that these rich South Seas adventures resonate with Alfred Kazin’s famous epitaph that “the greatest story Jack London ever wrote was the one he lived.” We will see how these adventurous wanderings in Polynesia and Melanesia provided a creative canvas for a large component of literary output in the later years of Jack’s all-too-short life.

Dr. John Freedman is a Global Studies Scholar & Lecturer with a special interest in destination-related topics that explore the literature, history, anthropology and biogeography of specific regions. A retired Sonoma County physician, he has been a featured speaker for National Geographic, Smithsonian, the World Affairs Council, Yale Alumni Travel and numerous cruise ship and riverboat lines worldwide including Viking, Silversea, Seabourn, Regent, Oceania, and Ponant’s Le Paul Gauguin.

Photographs courtesy of Dr. John Freedman.

WHEN: Sunday, August 6, 2023, 2:00-3:30 pm
WHERE: House of Happy Walls Museum, 2nd floor
ADMISSION: $15 per person, plus the entry fee of $10 per vehicle for up to nine passengers

Note: Limited seating available. Event space can be reached by stairway only; for more information about access, please call (707) 938-5216.