After a ferry accident on San Francisco Bay, literary critic Humphrey Van Weyden is swept out to sea only to be rescued by the seal-hunting schooner Ghost . Wolf Larsen, the captain of the Ghost , is brutal and cynical but also highly intelligent, and he has no intention of returning Van Weyden to shore. Van Weyden is forced to serve on the Ghost , leaving behind his comfortable world ashore and entering into a psychological battle with Larsen on the sea.

Jack London wrote The Sea-Wolf in 1904 following the success of his previous novel The Call of the Wild , and it has gone on to become one of his most popular novels. London actually served on a sealing schooner during his early career and that experience lends a gritty realism to his depiction of life at sea. The book can be read as a psychological thriller and adventure novel, but can also be read as a criticism of Nietzsche’s Übermensch philosophy with Wolf Larsen embodying a “superman” lacking conventional morality.