The Sea-Wolf is a 1904 psychological adventure novel by American novelist Jack London. The book's protagonist, Humphrey Van Weyden, is a literary critic who is a survivor of an ocean collision and who comes under the dominance of Wolf Larsen, the powerful and amoral sea captain who rescues him. Its first printing of forty thousand copies that was immediately sold out before publication. On the strength of London's previous The Call of the Wild, Ambrose Bierce wrote, "The great thing-and it is among the greatest of things-is that tremendous creation, Wolf Larsen... the hewing out and setting up of such a figure is enough for a man to do in one lifetime... The love element, with its absurd suppression's, and impossible proprieties, is awful. The personal character of the novel's antagonist "Wolf Larsen" was attributed to a real sailor London had known, Captain Alex MacLean. According to London himself, "much of the Sea Wolf is imaginary development, but the basis is Alexander McLean"The Sea Wolf tells the story of a soft, domesticated protagonist, forced to become tough and self-reliant by exposure to cruelty and brutality, when he is eventually picked up by Wolf Larsen. Larsen is the captain of a seal-hunting schooner, the Ghost. Brutal and cynical, yet also highly intelligent and intellectual, he rules over his ship and terrorizes the crew with the aid of his exceptionally great physical strength.