Great Short Works of Jack London

by Jack London

London's most popular and arguably his best works are those about the Far North: The Call of the Wild, White Fang, Batard, and others. Their complex themes and poetic force ensure their popularity year after year.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Short Stories, American

416 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1965

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

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jack London did not write books for juveniles. Current day “adults” in college would need a trigger warning on virtually everything Jack London wrote.

Plenty of violence in the lead stories, and plenty of horror in stories like To A Far Country and To Build a Fire.

The lead stories are The Call of the Wild and White Fang, both famous pieces of writing told from the point of view of a dog and a wolf.

Dog, wolf, and man struggle to survive in the wilderness during these tales. Men go insane, men starve, men freeze to death. Its fantastic.

I’m continually impressed by the hidden depths of London’s writing. The prose is straightforward and so are the stories, but there’s a depth of knowledge regarding the human condition that is hard to come by. Even when the story is told through the eyes of an animal.

[Andrew Barnes · Rating 2 out of 5]

Jack London’s style is just not for me. While I did enjoy White Fang and An Odyssey if the north, the rest I could really have done without.

[Christelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

Enjoyed some of these short stories, more specifically: "Love of Life" and "The Law fo Life".

[James Swenson · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was interesting to read The Call of the Wild and White Fang consecutively. If you had the audiobook of either, you could play it backwards to get the other.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great collection (hence the name). Favorites: Call of the Wild; White Fang; and An Odyssey of the North

[Jose Paulo · Rating 5 out of 5]

wonderfull