The Little Lady of the Big House (1915) is a novel by American writer Jack London. It was his last novel to be published during his lifetime.
Plot
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, who falls in love with Evan Graham, an old friend of her husband. Unable to choose between the two men, she wounds herself mortally with a rifle in what her husband is certain is a suicide.
Inspiration
Biographer Clarice Stasz writes that the book is "not autobiography", but speaks of London's "frank borrowing from his life with Charmian", his second wife, and says it is "psychologically valid as a mirror of events during [the] winter [of 1912–13]". Paula, like Charmian, is subject to insomnia and is unable to bear children. Based on a reading of Charmian's diary, Stasz identifies Evan Graham with two real-life men named Laurie Smith and Allan Dunn.
Kevin Starr, in a negative assessment, describes the novel as "wish-fulfilment". He says it
: provides a sort of last will and testament to California possibilities. His ranch life had begun in earnest in 1909 as a moratorium against chaos. Its last literary expression stank of madness and decay. Art and ranching converged in London's last effort, neither sustaining the other.