The Little Lady of The Big House

The Little Lady of the Big House (1915) is a novel by American
writer Jack London. Biographer Clarice Stasz states that it is "not
autobiography," but speaks of his "frank borrowing from his life with Charmian"
and says it is "psychologically valid as a mirror of events during [the] winter
[of 1912-13]. The story concerns a love triangle. The protagonist, Dick Forrest,
is a rancher with a poetic streak (his "acorn song" recalls London's play, "The
Acorn Planters."). His wife, Paula, is a vivacious, athletic, and sexually
self-aware woman (in one scene, she rides a stallion into a "swimming tank,"
emerging in "a white silken slip of a bathing suit that molded to her form like
a marble-carven veiling of drapery.") Paula, like Charmian, is subject to
insomnia; and Paula, like Charmian, is unable to bear children. Based on a
reading of Charmian's diary, Stasz identifies the third vertex of the triangle,
Evan Graham, with two real-life men named Laurie Smith and Allan Dunn. Even
minor characters can be identified; Forrest's servant Oh My resembles London's
valet Nakata. The long-bearded hobo philosopher Aaron Hancock resembles the
real-life long-bearded hobo philosopher Frank Strawn-Hamilton, who was a
long-term guest at the London ranch. Sculptor Haakan Frolich makes an appearance
as "the sculptor Froelig" — and painter Xavier Martinez appears as the character
"Xavier Martinez!"

London said of this novel: "It is all sex from start to finish — in which no
sexual adventure is actually achieved or comes within a million miles of being
achieved, and in which, nevertheless, is all the guts of sex, coupled with
strength." One reviewer disparaged the novel's "erotomania."

-- Excerpted from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.