Editing Jack London (section)

=== Short stories ===
[[File:Jack london nd 2.jpg|thumb|Jack London (date unknown)]]
[[File:Famous fantastic mysteries 194806.jpg|thumb|London's 1903 story "The Shadow and the Flash" was reprinted in the June 1948 issue of ''[[Famous Fantastic Mysteries]]'']]
[[File:(Bookplate of Jack London) (LOC) (15585512686).jpg|thumb|[[Bookplate]] used by Jack London]]
Western writer and historian [[Dale L. Walker]] writes:<ref name="DaleWalker">{{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20051025095617/http://www.jacklondons.net/writings/shortFiction/part1.html Dale L. Walker, "Jack London: The Stories"]}}, The World of Jack London</ref>

{{blockquote|
London's true métier was the short story ... London's true genius lay in the short form, 7,500 words and under, where the flood of images in his teeming brain and the innate power of his narrative gift were at once constrained and freed. His stories that run longer than the magic 7,500 generally—but certainly not always—could have benefited from self-editing.
}}

London's "strength of utterance" is at its height in his stories, and they are painstakingly well-constructed.{{citation needed|date=June 2010}} "[[To Build a Fire]]" is the best known of all his stories. Set in the harsh Klondike, it recounts the haphazard trek of a new arrival who has ignored an old-timer's warning about the risks of traveling alone. Falling through the ice into a creek in seventy-five-below weather, the unnamed man is keenly aware that survival depends on his untested skills at quickly building a fire to dry his clothes and warm his extremities. After publishing a tame version of this story—with a sunny outcome—in ''[[The Youth's Companion]]'' in 1902, London offered a second, more severe take on the man's predicament in ''[[The Century Magazine]]'' in 1908. Reading both provides an illustration of London's growth and maturation as a writer. As Labor (1994) observes: "To compare the two versions is itself an instructive lesson in what distinguished a great work of literary art from a good children's story."<ref name="To Build a Fire" group="upper-alpha" />

Other stories from the Klondike period include: "All Gold Canyon", about a battle between a gold [[Prospecting|prospector]] and a [[land claim|claim jumper]]; "[[The Law of Life]]", about an aging American Indian man abandoned by his tribe and left to die; "Love of Life", about a trek by a prospector across the Canadian tundra; "To the Man on Trail," which tells the story of a prospector fleeing the Mounted Police in a sled race, and raises the question of the contrast between written law and morality; and "An Odyssey of the North," which raises questions of conditional morality, and paints a sympathetic portrait of a man of mixed White and [[Aleut people|Aleut]] ancestry.

London was a [[boxing]] fan and an avid amateur boxer. "A Piece of Steak" is a tale about a match between older and younger boxers. It contrasts the differing experiences of youth and age but also raises the social question of the treatment of aging workers. "The Mexican" combines boxing with a social theme, as a young Mexican endures an unfair fight and ethnic prejudice to earn money with which to aid the revolution.

Several of London's stories would today be classified as science fiction. "The Unparalleled Invasion" describes [[germ warfare]] against China; "Goliath" is about an irresistible energy weapon; "The Shadow and the Flash" is a tale about two brothers who take different routes to achieving invisibility; "A Relic of the Pliocene" is a tall tale about an encounter of a modern-day man with a [[mammoth]]. "[[The Red One]]" is a late story from a period when London was intrigued by the theories of the [[psychiatrist]] and writer [[Carl Jung|Jung]]. It tells of an island tribe held in thrall by an extraterrestrial object.

Some nineteen original collections of short stories were published during London's brief life or shortly after his death. There have been several posthumous anthologies drawn from this pool of stories. Many of these stories were located in the Klondike and the Pacific. A collection of ''[[Jack London's San Francisco Stories]]'' was published in October 2010 by Sydney Samizdat Press.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20181106190339/https://www.jacklondon-sanfrancisco.com/ Jack London: San Francisco Stories] (Edited by Matthew Asprey; Preface by Rodger Jacobs)</ref>