Children of the Frost

by Jack London

Overview

From "The League of the Old Men" At the Barracks a man was being tried for his life. He was an old man, a native from the Whitefish River, which empties into the Yukon below Lake Le Barge. All Dawson was wrought up over the affair, and likewise the Yukon-dwellers for a thousand miles up and down. It has been the custom of the land-robbing and sea-robbing Anglo-Saxon to give the law to conquered peoples, and ofttimes this law is harsh. But in the case of Imber the law for once seemed inadequate and weak. In the mathematical nature of things, equity did not reside in the punishment to be accorded him. The punishment was a foregone conclusion, there could be no doubt of that; and though it was capital, Imber had but one life, while the tale against him was one of scores. In fact, the blood of so many was upon his hands that the killings attributed to him did not permit of precise enumeration. Smoking a pipe by the trail-side or lounging around the stove, men made rough estimates of the numbers that had perished at his hand. * Also included in this volume are "In the Forests of the North," "The Law of Life," "Nam-Bok the Unveracious," "The Master of Mystery," "The Sunlanders," "The Sickness of Lone Chief," "Keesh, the Son of Keesh," "The Death of Ligoun," and "Li Wan, the Fair."

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781633551275
Publisher:	Start Classics
Publication date:	05/16/2014
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	120
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Jack London's full name was John Griffith London, and he was born in San Francisco. After completing grammar school, London worked at various jobs to help support his family. He briefly enrolled in a university and took English classes, for he loved to read and write. However, he was not happy with this formal education and he soon dropped out.

In 1897 and 1898, London, like many other American and Canadian men, went north to Alaska and the Klondike region of Canada to search for gold. This was the Alaska Gold Rush. Although London never found any gold, his experience in the extreme environment of this cold part of the world gave him ideas for the stories he would write when he decided to return to California.


Upon his return to the San Francisco area, he began to write about his experiences. After winning a writing contest, he succeeded in selling some of his stories and in 1900, he published a collection of his short stories, The Son of the Wolf.
Like Stephen Crane, London wrote in a Naturalistic style, in which a story's actions and events are caused mainly by man's internal biological needs, or by the external forces of nature and the environment. Many of his stories, including his masterpiece The Call of the Wild (1903), deal with civilized man getting back in touch with his deep, animal instincts.

Among London's most important books were People of the Abyss (1903), written about the poor people of London, England; The Sea Wolf (1904), a novel based on the author's experiences as a seal hunter; John Barleycorn (1913), an autobiographical novel about his struggle against alcoholism; and The Star Rover (1915), a collection of related stories dealing with reincarnation.

London wrote more than 50 books and enjoyed enormous international popularity as an author. His exciting, often violent and brutal writing style attracted readers from all over the world and his stories and novels were translated into many different languages. Despite his success, however, alcohol and two broken marriages added to his growing unhappiness. In 1916, at the age of only 40, Jack London committed suicide.

Table of Contents

In the forests of the north — The law of life — Nam-bok the unveracious — The master of mystery — The sunlanders — The sickness of lone chief — Keesh, the son of Keesh — The death of Ligoun — Li Wan, the fair — The league of the old men.