The Road: an autobiographical memoir by Jack London first published in 1907. It is London's account of his experiences as a hobo in the 1890s during ... States had experienced up to that time.

The Road By Jack LondonThe Road is an autobiographical memoir by Jack London first published in 1907. It is Londons account of his experiences as a hobo in the 1890s during the worst economic depression the United States had experienced up to that time.He describes his experiences hopping freight trains holding down a train when the crew is trying to throw him off begging for food and money and making up extraordinary stories to fool the police. He also tells of the thirty days that he spent in the Erie County Penitentiary which he described as a place of unprintable horrors after being pinched (arrested) for vagrancy. In addition he recounts his time with Kelleys Army which he joined up with in Wyoming and remained with until its dissolution at the Mississippi River.The 1973 film Emperor of the North Pole starring Lee Marvin is loosely based upon The Road by Jack London.There is a woman in the state of Nevada to whom I once lied continuously consistently and shamelessly for the matter of a couple of hours. I dont want to apologize to her. Far be it from me. But I do want to explain. Unfortunately I do not know her name much less her present address. If her eyes should chance upon these lines I hope she will write to me. It was in Reno Nevada in the summer of 1892. Also it was fair-time and the town was filled with petty crooks and tin-horns to say nothing of a vast and hungry horde of hoboes. It was the hungry hoboes that made the town a hungry town. They battered the back doors of the homes of the citizens until the back doors became unresponsive. A hard town for scoffings was what the hoboes called it at that time. I know that I missed many a meal in spite of the fact that I could throw my feet with the next one when it came to slamming a gate for a poke-out or a set-down or hitting for a light piece on the street. Why I was so hard put in that town one day that I gave the porter the slip and invaded the private car of some itinerant millionnaire. The train started as I made the platform and I headed for the aforesaid millionnaire with the porter one jump behind and reaching for me. It was a dead heat for I reached the millionnaire at the same instant that the porter reached me. I had no time for formalities. Gimme a quarter to eat on I blurted out. And as I live that millionnaire dipped into his pocket and gave me ... just ... precisely ... a quarter. It is my conviction that he was so flabbergasted that he obeyed automatically and it has been a matter of keen regret ever since on my part that I didnt ask him for a dollar.