Although Jack London is best remembered as a fiction writer who chronicled the power of nature and the American West, he also dabbled in psychological drama over the course of his career. John Barleycorn is an engrossing novel based heavily on London's personal struggles with alcoholism.

John Barleycorn is an autobiographical novel by Jack London dealing with his enjoyment of and struggles with alcoholism. It was published in 1913. The title is taken from the British folksong "John Barleycorn

John Barleycorn is an autobiographical novel by Jack London dealing with his enjoyment of drinking and struggles with alcoholism. It was published in 1913. The title is taken from the British folksong "John Barleycorn."In this memoir, there are the themes of masculinity and male friendship. London discusses various life experiences he has had with alcohol, and at widely different stages in his life. Key stages are his late teen years when he earned money as a sailor and later in life when he was a wealthy, successful writer.Alcohol plays a big role in facilitating the themes listed above. The book is about the social facilitation of alcohol, but is also a cautionary tale about the addictive powers of alcohol and its deleterious effects on health. London describes the effects of alcohol along both optimistic and pessimistic lines, insisting at some points that it helped him in his developmental process towards becoming a man as he understood the idea and a writer and at other points that it limited in developing him in a healthy way. Alcohol was, during his period, not recognized as it is in the post-2000 period. It remains an important and enduring milestone of his authorial career and of many of the writers of his period, as well as the milestone of many of the social historians of his period. London insisted that historical literature was always more important in his life than alcohol, however.At the beginning of the book, Jack London gives a quick tease of "White Logic," mentioning the "white light of alcohol" and how alcohol presented to his mind the concept of White Logic. It is only until the final five chapters that the nihilism of White Logic is finally revealed and pitted against the "lesser truth" that "makes life possible to persist." John Griffith "Jack" London (born John Griffith Chaney, January 12, 1876 - November 22, 1916)was an American novelist, journalist, and social activist. A pioneer in the then-burgeoning world of commercial magazine fiction, he was one of the first fiction writers to obtain worldwide celebrity and a large fortune from his fiction alone. Some of his most famous works include The Call of the Wild and White Fang, both set in the Klondike Gold Rush, as well as the short stories "To Build a Fire," "An Odyssey of the North," and "Love of Life." He also wrote of the South Pacific in such stories as "The Pearls of Parlay" and "The Heathen," and of the San Francisco Bay area in The Sea Wolf. London was part of the radical literary group "The Crowd" in San Francisco and a passionate advocate of unionization, socialism, and the rights of workers. He wrote several powerful works dealing with these topics, such as his dystopian novel The Iron Heel, his non-fiction expose The People of the Abyss, and The War of the Classes."

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A 1997 bibliography of American fiction from 1901-1925.

James E. Sisson III, 1917-1986, of Vernon, Alabama, began studies in 1960 at the University of California, Berkeley, with Professor James D. Hart, and began his research on Jack London in 1970. Sisson's contributions to the field of Jack London scholarship were impressive. Joan London considered Sisson the premiere authority on her father, and Jack London scholars around the world respected and admired his work. Discovering previously unpublished Jack London plays at the Library of Congress, Sisson had London's play Gold published for the first time by the Holmes Book Company. He collected and published London's high school writings in Jack London's Articles and Short Stories in the (Oakland) High School Aegis; edited and co-authored with Dale Walker The Fiction of Jack London: A Chronological Bibliography; and compiled several bibliographies, including Jack London First Editions, The Non-Fiction of Jack London, The Collected Poems of Jack London, and Jack London and the South Seas: A Chronological Bibliography. Sisson regularly published pamphlets, articles, and reviews on Jack London in newsletters and newspapers, and reviewed almost every London work published since 1960. A tireless worker and advocate on behalf of London scholarship, he assisted many other researchers with grants and materials. Sisson's French heritage influenced his participation in Paris publications of London's writings. When editor Francis Lacassin translated London's science fiction story, "Star Rover" (1915) into French as "Le Vagabond des Etoiles," Sisson helped with extensive original research.