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Jack London has to be one of the greatest story tellers of the 19th century and 'Sea Wolf' is a timeless classic by this author.

Sea Wolf begins with a man being swept overboard a steam powered pleasure cruiser during a vicious storm in San Francisco Bay. His rescuer is a seal hunting schooner headed for the arctic regions. The captain of this schooner decides that this soft, oxford educated author that he has rescued needs to be educated in the school of hard-knocks and puts him to work aboard the schooner. His captive soon learns that the captain is not only remarkable for his brutality, but also for his towering intellect. Far from civilisation, our intellectual cum forced labourer must survive the tyranny of his captain as well as adapt to life at sea under treacherous arctic conditions.

Much of the story focuses on the intriguing relationship between these two main characters. The captain is a fearesome and powerful man with immense physical strength. Yet his appearance betrays his unusual intellect for a man of his position in the world. The captive is a typical 19th century oxford intelectual with enlightened ideas of civilised society and universal brotherhood. The captain on the other hand, believes in survival of the fittest; that nature intends the strong to rule the weak and that morals are an unnatural restraint. Such beliefs, along with his physical and intellectual power, marvels but yet completely repulses his captive and as he is forced to bide his time in order to escape, he debates whether he can justify (or is even capable of) murder.