The Jacket

Jack London (1876 - 1916)

A framing story is told in the first person by Darrell Standing, a university professor serving life imprisonment in San Quentin State Prison for murder. Prison officials try to break his spirit by means of a torture device called "the jacket," a canvas jacket which can be tightly laced so as to compress the whole body, inducing angina. Standing discovers how to withstand the torture by entering a kind of trance state, in which he walks among the stars and experiences portions of past lives.

The jacket itself was actually used at San Quentin at the time and Jack London's descriptions of it were based on interviews with a former convict named Ed Morrell, which is also the name of a character in the novel. For his role in the Sontag and Evans gang which robbed the Southern Pacific Railroad in the 1890s, Morrell spent fourteen years in California prisons (1894-1908), five of them in solitary confinement. London championed his pardon. After his release, Morrell was a frequent guest at London's Beauty Ranch. (Introduction by Wikipedia)

Genre(s): Published 1900 onward

Language: English

Section Chapter Reader Time
Play 01 01 - Chapter 1 Barry Eads
00:12:08
Play 02 02 - Chapter 2 Barry Eads
00:15:41
Play 03 03 - Chapter 3 Barry Eads
00:12:37
Play 04 04 - Chapter 4 Barry Eads
00:15:10
Play 05 05 - Chapter 5 Barry Eads
00:15:30
Play 06 06 - Chapter 6 Barry Eads
00:18:46
Play 07 07 - Chapter 7 Barry Eads
00:16:58
Play 08 08 - Chapter 8 Barry Eads
00:10:45
Play 09 09 - Chapter 9 Barry Eads
00:07:43
Play 10 10 - Chapter 10 Barry Eads
00:10:12
Play 11 11 - Chapter 11, Part 1 Barry Eads
00:25:01
Play 12 12 - Chapter 11, Part 2 Barry Eads
00:28:40
Play 13 13 - Chapter 12 Barry Eads
00:37:09
Play 14 14 - Chapter 13, Part 1 Barry Eads
00:24:28
Play 15 15 - Chapter 13, Part 2 Barry Eads
00:25:06
Play 16 16 - Chapter 14 Barry Eads
00:16:45
Play 17 17 - Chapter 15, Part 1 Barry Eads
00:39:41
Play 18 18 - Chapter 15, Part 2 Barry Eads
00:38:26
Play 19 19 - Chapter 16 Barry Eads
00:13:48
Play 20 20 - Chapter 17, Part 1 Barry Eads
00:26:26
Play 21 21 - Chapter 17, Part 2 Barry Eads
00:42:00
Play 22 22 - Chapter 18 Barry Eads
00:07:42
Play 23 23 - Chapter 19, Part 1 Barry Eads
00:30:38
Play 24 24 - Chapter 19, Part 2 Barry Eads
00:30:45
Play 25 25 - Chapter 20 Barry Eads
00:17:02
Play 26 26 - Chapter 21, Part 1 Barry Eads
00:23:06
Play 27 27 - Chapter 21, Part 2 Barry Eads
00:23:10
Play 28 28 - Chapter 22 Barry Eads
00:22:23