Martin Eden is the tale of a sailor who educates himself. Eden has a wicked crush on college-educated society girl Ruth Morse, and thinks that he can get her by becoming one of the literati . . . we all know what happens in that story, don't we? He loses his fiancée, of course (he's not well "established" enough for her). But Martin finds fame and fortune in the end -- and of course that gets the girl's attention -- as if he'd want it! Oh, complication. A classic London novel of social issues . . . which ends up, oddly, in the south seas. Maybe there's something of an autobiography here. . . .