Martin Eden, sailor, laundryman, big and strong and handsome, finds out about another life, filled with elegant paintings, thought-feeding books and the angel, beautiful Ruth...
Ruth, so different from all the women he has met so far, cannot but feel a deep, dark and mysterious attraction to him. She teaches him to read, provides conversation and he soon starts on writing short stories and poems that he sends to magazines, convinced his work is too good to be long ignored. Unfortunately, his stories are systematically sent back to him, rejected.
Meanwhile, Ruth pines away, waiting for Martin to get a real job, while her parents, membres of the local bourgeoisie, hope she will soon understand he is not their kind and will never be.
When fame finally bursts into Martin's life, and money flows in, and people who days before ignored him, ask him out for dinners and parties, it's too late. Martin Eden can't come to terms with the idea that people have changed their attitude towards him whereas he is still the same man. He refuses hypocrisy and don't want people's admiration now "Because I'm famous; because I've got a lot of money. Not because I'm ME, a pretty good fellow and not particularly a fool." and realises there was nothing he wanted more than fame, but as the saying goes: "Be careful what you wish for, you might as well get it...".