Jack London Library

by Jack London

47 dramatic short stories with original illustrations, by the master story teller.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Classics

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1980

About the author

John Griffith Chaney, better known as Jack London, was an American novelist, journalist and activist. A pioneer of commercial fiction and American magazines, he was one of the first American authors to become an international celebrity and earn a large fortune from writing. He was also an innovator in the genre that would later become known as science fiction.

London was part of the radical literary group "The Crowd" in San Francisco and a passionate advocate of animal rights, workers’ rights and socialism. London wrote several works dealing with these topics, such as his dystopian novel The Iron Heel, his non-fiction exposé The People of the Abyss, War of the Classes, and Before Adam.

His most famous works include The Call of the Wild and White Fang, both set in Alaska and the Yukon during the Klondike Gold Rush, as well as the short stories "To Build a Fire", "An Odyssey of the North", and "Love of Life". He also wrote about the South Pacific in stories such as "The Pearls of Parlay" and "The Heathen".

Reviews

[Emi Chan · Rating 3 out of 5]

London is a classic for a reason. The stories varied in their ability to hold my attention span, as the masculine, conquesting explorer plowing through the great unknown came off as dry at times. Despite this, a few stories -the thousand dozen- had me hooked.

[Michaell Baumler]

I really didn’t like this book I hope I like Call of the Wild better

[Kirill Abbakumov · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a compilation book of 46 short stories written for various magazines, and includes the short novella The Game and short story collection of the Tales of the Fish Patrol across its nearly 500 pages. These pages add up to a mammoth of a book, which made it a difficult trek to get through over numerous months of on and off reading.

Jack London is a talented story teller, and always knows how to tell and end the story, often with a satisfying twist. Most of the stories are set in the North and a lot of them thematically focus on Indigenous Peoples and their interactions with settlers, as well as the hardships, often real, endured by everyone in the frigid North.

Some of my favorite short stories were:

- In Yeddo Bay
- Love of Life
- The Sun-Dog Trail
- The Sickness of Lone Chief

Overall, it was time well spent with this big book and it verges on a 3.5 to 4 star rating.

[Aida]

jack london is a marvelous storty teller. i read him when i was in high school.

[Adi · Rating 5 out of 5]

A typical Jack London - romantic, daring, mysterious. What's not to like?

[Alisha Abraham · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jack London's stories are not just adventurous but they are also full of emotions. They are full of flesh and blood and leaves us thinking.

[Noël]

1960