Photograph (1903)
Jack London was born in San Francisco in 1876 and grew up poor. Before he was twenty he had been an oyster pirate, a sailor, a factory hand and a tramp. In 1897 he joined the Klondike gold rush in the Yukon, and found no gold, but came back with the stories that made his name.
His novels The Call of the Wild and White Fang, and his tales of the frozen North, are about survival: men and animals against the cold, hunger and each other. He wrote more than fifty books before he died in 1916, at forty.
Jack London on the site
The Call of the WildPublished in 1903
About 2 hours read
Buck is a big, pampered dog on a judge's estate in sunny California, until a gardener sells him to pay a gambling debt. Shipped north to the Klondike gold rush, he learns the law of club and fang as a sled dog in the snow, fights for the lead of the team, and finds one master he would die for. Jack London's 1903 novel, and the call that draws Buck back to the wild.
White FangPublished in 1906
About 5 hours read
In the frozen Yukon a wolf-dog cub is born in a cave, and learns the law of the wild: eat or be eaten. White Fang passes from the wild to an Indian camp, to a cruel master who makes him fight, and at last to a man who tries to win him with kindness. Jack London's 1906 novel tells it all through the eyes of the animal himself.
Lost FacePublished in 1910
About 20 min read
Subienkow has fled across Siberia and Russian America, and now sits bound in the snow, captive of a tribe that has just tortured his comrade to death. He is next, and he has only his wits left to save himself from a slow death. A tense, cunning story by Jack London, from his 1910 collection of the same name.
To Build a FirePublished in 1908
About 30 min read
It is seventy-five below zero on the Yukon trail. A man who has never felt such cold sets out alone, with only a husky dog, to reach his friends' camp by evening. The old-timer warned him never to travel alone in such cold. Jack London's 'To Build a Fire' is one of the most famous short stories ever written, a race against the frost told minute by minute.
TrustPublished in 1910
About 20 min read
The last steamboat of the season has left, the Yukon is about to freeze, and a man has promised to deliver a bag of gold to its owner. How far will he go to keep his word, on a river full of ice and in a canoe? A story of friendship and honour from Jack London's 1910 collection 'Lost Face'.
Flush of GoldPublished in 1910
About 25 min read
On a long winter journey across the Yukon, two travellers stop at a lonely cabin where a beautiful woman lives far from everyone. Lon McFane tells the story of the woman and the man who loved her, and of a promise that cost them dearly. A Jack London love story of the gold rush, from his 1910 collection 'Lost Face'.
That SpotPublished in 1910
About 20 min read
Two gold-seekers on the Klondike trail buy a dog named Spot: big, strong, handsome, and the most useless, thieving animal in the North. No matter how hard they try to lose him, Spot always comes back. A comic Jack London story from 1910, told by a prospector who still cannot speak of that dog calmly.
