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The Greatest Writers of All Time
The Collected Jack London
London's works have enthralled readers for over a century. The Collected Jack London includes 36 stories and 4 complete novels.
1061 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1991
2568 people are currently reading
1694 people want to read
About the author
Jack London
7,675 books7,695 followersJohn 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".
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".
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews
February 19, 2017
First semester freshman year I took a sabbatical and sat in a cube and read these. THink it took a week or so. Very escapist and very worth it.
September 27, 2020
Never had the chance before to read MANY of Jack London's works. I am quite impressed with his accomplishments. This was a very enjoyable read.
November 30, 2020
Some mighty fine writing.
November 25, 2020
6742 pages
July 20th 2019 - November 23rd 2020
It has taken a while to read the complete novels of Jack London. On the whole a SIX STAR author. I felt conscious I was awarding each story 5 stars and needed to appear less of a fan. Then came along some six star stories which I’ve listed as my favourites.
Today’s public would scream BAN if they read all the derogatory words about people who weren’t white. The characters who trade in human life tended to speak a certain way. So the N-word and others are peppered throughout and will make you uncomfortable. But reading more about Jack London will show you what he believes in.
Brutal and raw would best describe London’s work. He tends to show the worst of society uncompromisingly so. These are my favourites amongst the lesser known ones.
The Game- Boxing
The Iron Heel - Capitalism
The Abysmal Brute -Boxing
Burning Daylight - Alaskan Gold Rush
Jerry of the Islands - Dog Story
Michael, Brother of Jerry - Dog Story
The Star Rover - Death-row inmate
Also these are already touted as worth a read.
The Call of the Wild *
The Sea Wolf *
White Fang *
The Road *
Gonna miss reading London.
Would love to post this on Amazon, unfortunately as I don't have a credit card I can't purchase anything I am cast aside on the You Don't Count List.
July 20th 2019 - November 23rd 2020
It has taken a while to read the complete novels of Jack London. On the whole a SIX STAR author. I felt conscious I was awarding each story 5 stars and needed to appear less of a fan. Then came along some six star stories which I’ve listed as my favourites.
Today’s public would scream BAN if they read all the derogatory words about people who weren’t white. The characters who trade in human life tended to speak a certain way. So the N-word and others are peppered throughout and will make you uncomfortable. But reading more about Jack London will show you what he believes in.
Brutal and raw would best describe London’s work. He tends to show the worst of society uncompromisingly so. These are my favourites amongst the lesser known ones.
The Game- Boxing
The Iron Heel - Capitalism
The Abysmal Brute -Boxing
Burning Daylight - Alaskan Gold Rush
Jerry of the Islands - Dog Story
Michael, Brother of Jerry - Dog Story
The Star Rover - Death-row inmate
Also these are already touted as worth a read.
The Call of the Wild *
The Sea Wolf *
White Fang *
The Road *
Gonna miss reading London.
Would love to post this on Amazon, unfortunately as I don't have a credit card I can't purchase anything I am cast aside on the You Don't Count List.
January 28, 2016
Jack London is one great storyteller! Having never read any of his work, I began with "White Fang" because my brothers had read it many years ago. Wondering if I could get into this "dog story" I began without any enthusiasm. However, it wasn't long before I was hooked and I couldn't put it down. I proceeded thru London's stories and have to say I was enthralled with the storytelling and the beautiful writing. I don't read much fiction. Most of today's fiction doesn't appeal to me. But Jack London along with some of the other 19th, early-20th-Century writers are the best in my opinion. Maupassant, Singer, Lawrence, Dostoyevsky, etc. knew how to tell a story. Having now read the wide-range of his writing, I'm about to begin the latest London biography. I would guess the life of someone who writes as he wrote, would be as interesting and adventurous as his stories.
April 16, 2014
This is an excellent collection of both well-known short stories such as 'To Build a Fire' and other equally powerful yet little-known gems. Additionally, the short stories and novels are categorized into three sections THE NORTH, THE MAN, and THE SEA. I love how the novel "Martin Eden" is included in this version for it is often left out of compilations in favor of more popular novels such as White Fang, Call of the Wild, and The Sea-Wolf...which also happen to be included in this version as well.
Overall, this is a great compilation to have in any library. I feel that it is a good sample of London's work that showcases the breadth of his work by providing well-known favorites along with other works that are not often as widely circulated.
Overall, this is a great compilation to have in any library. I feel that it is a good sample of London's work that showcases the breadth of his work by providing well-known favorites along with other works that are not often as widely circulated.
May 31, 2008
What can I say--I'm a fan of the 'other' Jack. London's writing is kind of like a hybrid of Kerouac, Thoreau, Krakauer,and Twain. His stories are gathered from true accounts to fictitious stories based in the far-off places he's had adventurers. I love his early stuff--the short stories. There's a lot of youthful passion in his early writing that not many are aquainted with. When people hear 'Jack London', most think of 'Call of the Wild' or the short story 'To Build A Fire'. But there's sooooo much more--including some crazy-ass science fiction stuff. This is something you want a hardcover of, because you'll want to just pick it up every now and then and read it.
September 2, 2023
As I was listening to these Jack London stories, I was strangely reminded of watching Walt Disney on television when I was growing up with nature stories about animals. The Walt Disney stories did not have any visible blood and guts that I recall, but of course, wildlife does include death.
I can’t remember, how long ago Jack London wrote these stories, but I think it has been quite a long time ago. I found them fascinating, and well presented in the audible format. It seemed that the presentation in the stories was fairly realistic although the end of the story in white fang was a little unlikely with the happy ending. I.
I can’t remember, how long ago Jack London wrote these stories, but I think it has been quite a long time ago. I found them fascinating, and well presented in the audible format. It seemed that the presentation in the stories was fairly realistic although the end of the story in white fang was a little unlikely with the happy ending. I.
November 22, 2021
One short story in this omnibus, "To Build a Fire", I found particularly engrossing.
Want to read
January 17, 2018January 2018:
Martin Eden: 4.5*
Martin Eden: 4.5*
July 27, 2024
Took me forever and ever! But was a good collection. All London's novels and most of his short fiction.
I will likely return to more of his short fiction in the future.
I will likely return to more of his short fiction in the future.
November 11, 2019
Jack London
I'm marking this book as read even though I haven't read more than a fraction. I will probably come back to it as I enjoy reading Jack London's stories. He's not, perhaps, a grand stylist of whom you think "I don't care what he writes as long as he writes". Then again, there are no writers of whom I would say that. I like a good story and memorable characters and Mr London provides plenty of that.
Only The Scarlet Plague and The Star Rover will be reviewed here.
The Scarlet Plague is one of the earliest after-the-apocalypse novels – well, actually only a novella. It reminds me of a couple of later stories, particularly Earth Abides by George R. Stewart. Also set in southern California it details the collapse of civilization following a pandemic which killed almost everybody. Earth Abides ends with the reinvention of the bow. That was how far civilization had fallen. Mr London's Scarlet Plague was much more devastating. Only a very few people survived. The main part of this story is the tale told by "Granser" - possibly a degraded form of "grandfather" to three young men detailing how the plague devastated his world. Granser is very old and the story he tells is from sixty years previous. He was at the time a college professor and ill-equipped to face a new life alone in a world in which you must hunt and find your own food. There is a bit of social criticism in Granser's inability to accept that his social "inferiors" prove to be more adaptable. There is also, of course, a warning of how fearful would be the loss of our civilization when brutes would dominate human society. The three young men show Granser little respect and poke fun at him as, being so old – over eighty surely, he is useless. In the brave new world wisdom - or at least long memory and history are little valued. Culture weighs light in the scale against utility. Bears and wolves and other predators have returned and are a present threat to men and their animals. And to combat them the sling and the bow are the weapons of choice.
Mr London is a bit of a visionary. "The Scarlet Death came in 2013. . . the year Morgan the Fifth was appointed President of the United States by the Board of Magnates."
So democracy didn't last. And sixty years later on neither did literacy:
"'You're a great Granser,' [the boy] cried delightedly, 'always making believe them little marks mean something.'" (p.12)
Some of his technological predictions are off the mark: "And right up there on the cliff was a big restaurant where you could get anything you wanted to eat." [Cliff House north of Golden Gate Park still exists]. "Four million people lived in San Francisco then. And now, in the whole city and county there aren't forty all told. And out here on the sea were ships and ships always to be seen, going in for the Golden Gate or coming out. And airships in the air – dirigibles and flying machines. They could travel two hundred miles an hour..." (p. 16)
"...The old man babbled on, unheeded by the boys, who were long accustomed to his garrulousness, and whose vocabularies, besides, lacked the greater portion of the words he used. It was noticeable that in these rambling soliloquies his English seemed to recrudesce into better construction and phraseology. But when he talked directly with the boys it lapsed, largely, into their own uncouth and simpler forms." (p.16) This reminds me of another book Riddley Walker by Russel Hoban, telling the story of a primitive civilization that has risen from the ruins hundreds of years after a nuclear war. The most memorable detail of Riddley Walker – to me, twenty or so years after reading it – is the language which is a degraded English dialect and a struggle to comprehend. Mr London doesn't write extensively in the degraded speech of his future, fortunately, as we have Granser to interpret for us.
Mr London's population figures tally somewhat better than his airspeed: "The census of 2010 gave eight billions for the whole world..." The actual figure was only 6.9 billion. But here in 2019 we are up to 7.9. "...In the year 2000 there were fifteen hundred millions in Europe" The actual number was only half: 711 million – possibly thanks to two world wars? (p. 21).
The tale ends sadly "...by fire and blood, will a new civilization, in some remote day, be evolved. And of what profit will it be? Just as the old civilization passed, so will the new. It may take fifty thousand years to build, but it will pass. All things pass... (p.59)
I'm marking this book as read even though I haven't read more than a fraction. I will probably come back to it as I enjoy reading Jack London's stories. He's not, perhaps, a grand stylist of whom you think "I don't care what he writes as long as he writes". Then again, there are no writers of whom I would say that. I like a good story and memorable characters and Mr London provides plenty of that.
Only The Scarlet Plague and The Star Rover will be reviewed here.
The Scarlet Plague is one of the earliest after-the-apocalypse novels – well, actually only a novella. It reminds me of a couple of later stories, particularly Earth Abides by George R. Stewart. Also set in southern California it details the collapse of civilization following a pandemic which killed almost everybody. Earth Abides ends with the reinvention of the bow. That was how far civilization had fallen. Mr London's Scarlet Plague was much more devastating. Only a very few people survived. The main part of this story is the tale told by "Granser" - possibly a degraded form of "grandfather" to three young men detailing how the plague devastated his world. Granser is very old and the story he tells is from sixty years previous. He was at the time a college professor and ill-equipped to face a new life alone in a world in which you must hunt and find your own food. There is a bit of social criticism in Granser's inability to accept that his social "inferiors" prove to be more adaptable. There is also, of course, a warning of how fearful would be the loss of our civilization when brutes would dominate human society. The three young men show Granser little respect and poke fun at him as, being so old – over eighty surely, he is useless. In the brave new world wisdom - or at least long memory and history are little valued. Culture weighs light in the scale against utility. Bears and wolves and other predators have returned and are a present threat to men and their animals. And to combat them the sling and the bow are the weapons of choice.
Mr London is a bit of a visionary. "The Scarlet Death came in 2013. . . the year Morgan the Fifth was appointed President of the United States by the Board of Magnates."
So democracy didn't last. And sixty years later on neither did literacy:
"'You're a great Granser,' [the boy] cried delightedly, 'always making believe them little marks mean something.'" (p.12)
Some of his technological predictions are off the mark: "And right up there on the cliff was a big restaurant where you could get anything you wanted to eat." [Cliff House north of Golden Gate Park still exists]. "Four million people lived in San Francisco then. And now, in the whole city and county there aren't forty all told. And out here on the sea were ships and ships always to be seen, going in for the Golden Gate or coming out. And airships in the air – dirigibles and flying machines. They could travel two hundred miles an hour..." (p. 16)
"...The old man babbled on, unheeded by the boys, who were long accustomed to his garrulousness, and whose vocabularies, besides, lacked the greater portion of the words he used. It was noticeable that in these rambling soliloquies his English seemed to recrudesce into better construction and phraseology. But when he talked directly with the boys it lapsed, largely, into their own uncouth and simpler forms." (p.16) This reminds me of another book Riddley Walker by Russel Hoban, telling the story of a primitive civilization that has risen from the ruins hundreds of years after a nuclear war. The most memorable detail of Riddley Walker – to me, twenty or so years after reading it – is the language which is a degraded English dialect and a struggle to comprehend. Mr London doesn't write extensively in the degraded speech of his future, fortunately, as we have Granser to interpret for us.
Mr London's population figures tally somewhat better than his airspeed: "The census of 2010 gave eight billions for the whole world..." The actual figure was only 6.9 billion. But here in 2019 we are up to 7.9. "...In the year 2000 there were fifteen hundred millions in Europe" The actual number was only half: 711 million – possibly thanks to two world wars? (p. 21).
The tale ends sadly "...by fire and blood, will a new civilization, in some remote day, be evolved. And of what profit will it be? Just as the old civilization passed, so will the new. It may take fifty thousand years to build, but it will pass. All things pass... (p.59)
The Star Rover is another "fantastic" tale. Although that being said it has it's feet firmly planted on the ground - in the realism of prison life. Darrell Standing tells of his life as respected agronomist and then as prisoner in San Quentin. In between, briefly, he was also a murderer. "obsessed by that catastrophic red wrath that has cursed me down the ages, I killed my fellow professor." Down the ages he says. And indeed Darrell Standing discovers - with the help of a fellow prisoner - that when confined in the straight jacket in solitary there is a way in which he can leave his body and revisit past lives. Before doing this though readers get a hard look at the terrible conditions prevailing in an American prison at the beginning of the 20th Century. Possibly it is no better now. Certainly there is the same corruption and intrigue if not the overt brutality of the guards. Though what do I know - fortunately, nothing.
"...our guards were brutes! And under their treatment we had to harden to brutes in order to live. Hard work makes calloused hands. Hard guards make hard prisoners..."
"...perhaps you are unacquainted with the jacket. Let me describe it, so that you will understand the method by which I achieved death in life, became a temporary master of time and space, and vaulted the prison walls to rove among the stars.
Have you ever seen canvas tarpaulins or rubber blankets with brass eyelets set in along the edges? Then imagine a piece of stout canvas, some four and one-half feet in length, with large and heavy brass eyelets running down both edges. The width of this canvas is never the full girth of the human body it is to surround. The width is also irregular - broadest at the shoulders, next broadest at the hips, and narrowest at the waist. The man who is to be punished, or who is to be tortured for confession... lies face-downward. The edges of the jacket are brought as nearly together as possible along the centre of the man's back. Then a rope, on the principle of the shoe-lace, is run through the eyelets, and on the principle of a shoe-lacing the man is laced in the canvas. Only he is laced more severely than any person ever laces his shoe..."
"After Warden Atherton and his crew had left me it was a matter of minutes to will the resuscitated portion of my body back into the little death. Death in life it was, but it was only the little death, similar to the temporary death produced by an anaesthetic.
And so, from all that was sordid and vile, from brutal solitary and jacket hell, from acquainted flies and sweats of darkness... I was away at a bound into time and space..."
From here the book becomes an odyssey of lives of thrills and massacres, war and love and a little peace. Usually the lives end with his death and often it is violent. Here is scope for Mr London.
I seem to recall Darrell mentioning that he had also been a woman but he recounts none of those lives. Indeed the climax of the book is his eulogy of the eternal Woman. Though, to be honest, his lauditory praise is a bit narrow:
"the eternal lesson learned in all lives, that woman is ever woman... that in great decisive moments woman does not reason but feels; that the last sanctuary and innermost pulse to conduct is in woman’s heart and not in woman’s head."
He tosses out a few other acerbic remarks as well: "The Asiatic is a cruel beast, and delights in spectacles of human suffering..." which is pretty racist. But he also states:
"The white man has gone around the world in mastery, I do believe, because of his unwise uncaringness..."
We learn quite a bit about history and prehistory. Mr London was well read in the anthropology of his day. Some things are not as they seem. "Shamashnapishtin", for example, I suspect to be Utnapishtim, the later Akkadian name for the Sumerian god-king Ziusudra. We also learn about Norse gods and goddesses and even the Finnish "Il-marinen" - the eternal hammerer - an immortal god in the Kalevala. Thank heavens I read this on a Kindle and could look up most things easily.
Comes so the paean to Woman in which we fly through the many lives, reviewing those of which we have read and being tantalized by others, many others.
In a pessimistic note Darrell – i.e. Mr London probably – establishes that "Man, the individual, has made no moral progress in the past ten thousand years." As in The Scarlet Plague he sees civilization as a veneer - a thin veneer easily peeled away.
More to come?!
October 9, 2022
Jack London's various works that reflect his own life in the early 20th century are all very well written and unique despite the common themes. Specifically, the ones set during the Klondike gold rush, The Call of the Wild and White Fang, which are both very interesting, and despite the similar themes have very much opposite plots. In both stories a dog overcomes trials from both people and other dogs, yet they are very much the opposite as one must learn to live in the wilderness, and another in civilization. Despite this they still both manage to hold up quite well with many parallels even though they go in different directions. Such as how both dogs in the stories must fight others to prove themselves. And how they must learn to trust a person, Scott in White Fang, and Thorton in The Call of the Wild, to learn how to live their respective new lives. All of Jack London's books are commendable, and do well to reflect the unique situation of life up north in the early 1900s, I would recommend them all, but these longer two especially as their plots are a lot more developed, letting one get much more invested in the story.
July 27, 2019
Love this stories, n hv read it many times. Jack London works r fantastic.
May 3, 2020
Good reading
Jack London was good about somewhat dark at times. I did enjoy overall and would highly recommend reading to anybody.
Jack London was good about somewhat dark at times. I did enjoy overall and would highly recommend reading to anybody.
February 17, 2021
Wonderful stories that tell of the cold north.
September 29, 2021
He’s good. He has a proper mix of good English with local color dialect and vocabulary, as well as humor and adventure.
July 5, 2022
Very well written, and illuminating insight into the psyche of working class America at the turn of the 20th century. Just not my typical taste in terms of story (hunting, fighting)
July 29, 2023
estaba piola, mis favoritos fueron "cara de luna" y "Los favoritos de Midas"
August 9, 2025
"When Gods Laugh" + "The Mexican"
Currently reading
October 9, 2014The people of the Abyss written in 1902 is said to have inspired George Orwell. No welfare state then. People who have become too old or ill roam the streets subsisting on orange peel, plum stones and tiny globules of bread picked up from spittle washed pavements. For some reason they are prevented from sleeping on the streets during the night and are made to tramp around dropping exhausted teemed into municipal parks at daybreak. A night's stay in a work house is a luxury for the few. A seventy eight year old woman is said to have died from self neglect when she gets blood poisoning from her bed sores. Still got a third of The people of the abyss read. Jack has a go at picking hops and finds he get earn enough money to buy bed and food for the night. He muses that the "best" of English people are either in the army or have gone abroad. The people left are stunted bent bedraggled and corrupted. He has a go and staying in a Doss and finds even single working men can not earn the right to a room of their own to keep safe meagre possessions. Rents are so high and rising that the same bed may be occupied by one individual who works at night and another who works during the day. Even the space under beds is rented out and this is for people who work. People too old or infirm fill the streets and workhouses. People who work are sweated to that wages barely cover the essentials of life.
December 5, 2016
Five stars for "Sea Wolf".
Four stars for "White Fang" and "Call of the Wild", but add a fifth star if you really like dogs or wolves or the Yukon. He seems to have learned a lot about all three during his one winter there.
Four stars for "John Barleycorn", but add a fifth (star, that is) if alcohol is important to you. Look here to find London's forthright and disenchanted view on the meaning of life.
Three stars for "Martin Eden"; see my review under that title.
Two or three stars for most of the short stories; those few touching on his experiences as an oyster pirate around San Francisco Bay and his tramping across the country were more interesting. I couldn't get through but half the rest.
London made it a point to write 1000 words a day. Would that he had more often sacrificed quantity for quality, but he had to pay the bills.
I have to greatly admire the man for having overcome a messed-up family, curtailed education, poverty and several diseases in reaching success.
Four stars for "White Fang" and "Call of the Wild", but add a fifth star if you really like dogs or wolves or the Yukon. He seems to have learned a lot about all three during his one winter there.
Four stars for "John Barleycorn", but add a fifth (star, that is) if alcohol is important to you. Look here to find London's forthright and disenchanted view on the meaning of life.
Three stars for "Martin Eden"; see my review under that title.
Two or three stars for most of the short stories; those few touching on his experiences as an oyster pirate around San Francisco Bay and his tramping across the country were more interesting. I couldn't get through but half the rest.
London made it a point to write 1000 words a day. Would that he had more often sacrificed quantity for quality, but he had to pay the bills.
I have to greatly admire the man for having overcome a messed-up family, curtailed education, poverty and several diseases in reaching success.
April 22, 2017
Many of the stories I found boring at that time but one has never left me.
Batard. I have never again read a story that filled me with all consuming hate and disgust but yet captivated me and compelled me to read it to the bitter end, hoping to find punishing justice served or anything that would be able to give me the reassurance that evil will not be left to do as it pleases.
I was 13 and this story taught me what can lie in human nature. A lesson I never forgot.
Batard. I have never again read a story that filled me with all consuming hate and disgust but yet captivated me and compelled me to read it to the bitter end, hoping to find punishing justice served or anything that would be able to give me the reassurance that evil will not be left to do as it pleases.
I was 13 and this story taught me what can lie in human nature. A lesson I never forgot.
March 6, 2020
London plumbs the depths of humanity in his books. I recently reread The Sea Wolf and found it just as engaging as I did in my first read. London is masterful at describing the hardships of pioneers and people who pit themselves against the elements. I remember the plots better than their titles because the plots are just so memorable.
January 24, 2008
like with hemingway, i'm not into london's novels as much as i'm into his short stories. i'm from minnesota, so there used to be many a snowy night i would read london and imagine that i was really in alaska.
November 15, 2018
Most of his stories, essays and novels are amazing works and I am a huge fan of his writing style and the way his writings keeps one involved, mesmerized and amazed. I hope I too write like he did one day.
February 27, 2019
Izcils autors! Noteikti ne tā vieglākā lasāmviela, taču vienu Džeks Londons ir pavēstījis - ko nozīmē "būt patiesam vadonim vilku barā". Iesaku pārlasīt ik pa laikam, lai atrastu šais darbos ko jaunu ikdienas gaitās.
December 17, 2007
Huge and imminently serviceable collection of London's novels, memoirs and short stories, missing only his dystopian stuff.
September 16, 2008
Some of the best adventure storytelling i know of.
March 15, 2009
I learned more interms of recognizing the dark side of humanity and it's toils
Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews