Published in 1904, and drawing on London's own experience on board a sealing ship, The Sea-Wolf describes the struggle between the civilized and the pagan, between the values of the ruthless sea-captain, Wolf Larsen, and the moral, literary Humphrey Van Weyden.

One of his most popular novels, it also reveals London's preoccupation with the Nietzschean idea of the superman, and his interest in the brute underlying social behaviour.