The Waynedale News

One word stands out when you ask fans of the writer Dennis E. Hensley to describe him: prolific. During his career, Hensley has published more than 50 books and 3,000 newspaper and magazine articles. His work includes eight novels, textbooks on writing and books on time management and finance.
Hensley, who directs the professional writing major at Taylor University (Upland, Ind.) has just published his fifty-second book, Jack London's Masterpieces (Taylor University Press). The book contains summaries of all of the novels and short stories written by American author Jack London. Jack London's Masterplots serves as a companion piece to The Annotated Edition of Jack London's Martin Eden (Taylor University Press), which Hensley published in 2006.

Why did you write this book?

One of the reasons I wrote the book was to expose people to the range of topics Jack London wrote about and the different genres he used in his writing. A lot of people know of Jack London's novels The Call of the Wild and White Fang and short stories like "To Build a Fire" and "The White Silence." But many people don't know that London wrote science fiction, romances, high-sea adventures, South Seas dramas and many other kinds of work.

When people look through my book, they are amazed to find out how diverse and prolific London was in his writing. London wrote in an era when magazines were very big and highly specialized. He wrote several stories for a magazine called The Black Cat, and that magazine was strictly science fiction. London also wrote for The Atlantic Monthly, which was one of the most prestigious magazines of his era, and it remains so today. He wrote for the Saturday Evening Post on a number of occasions. This generation knows maybe five or six titles by Jack London. So, one of my goals in getting the book out was for librarians to share London's work with people, researchers to discover his work and fans of Jack London to pick up the book and realize that there are other short stories and novels written by him to discover and read.

What process did you follow in writing the book?

When I wrote my doctoral dissertation at Ball State University, I compiled an exhaustive list of Jack London's novels, short stories, and plays. During one of my first meetings with my adviser, he asked me about the number of novels and other works London had written. I told him London wrote 21 novels, 190 short stories, and five plays. He told me I needed to read all of them, which I did. I didn't see my adviser again until two years later, not only because I had to read and study the material, but also because I actually had to find some of the work. Some of London's work had never been collected in books and some of his stories had been published in magazines that were no longer in print, so I had to talk with reference librarians who helped me locate many of London's stories.

After I found the material, I knew I never would remember every detail of 21 novels, 190 short stories, and five plays, so I wrote down the titles, main characters and settings. Then I wrote a succinct summary for each work. I never got rid of all that information, and it became material for my book.

Why is Jack London's work still popular?

There are two answers to that question. First, London's work keeps getting read and discovered by audiences. For example, The Call of the Wild has never gone out of print, and it's now translated into –the last I heard –127 languages. White Fang has been an incredibly popular book for well more than a century. The Sea Wolf is the only novel that has been made into a movie six times. It was originally shot as a silent movie when Jack London was still alive. Many of London's ideas have been reused, revised, and updated by other authors and screenwriters.

The second reason London remains popular is because he wrote for money, so he often wrote pieces that would entertain people and bring in money. For example, he wrote children's books, which were tremendously popular and entertaining. He wrote two books about dogs (Jerry of the Islands and Michael, Brother of Jerry), and they were widely received. A lot of his work was not heavy literature, but it entertained audiences and made London lots of money. He was the most popular writer of his time, and he was the first person in the history of the world to earn $1 million strictly from writing.

Is there anything else you want to say?

I wish there were more books published like Jack London's Masterplots. As a student of writing, I would like to see books about masterplots from other great American authors – Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway, Herman Melville.

Let's say you read a book or short story years ago and you could not remember much about the book. If you had a book of masterplots, you could go back and find a quick summary of the story. Or, let's say you wanted to go back and look at books or short stories by great authors. A masterplots book would be a good resource to help find titles of works that you may not have read by those authors. You don't find many books where people have done that type of exhaustive, in-depth analysis. I think that makes my book unique.