South Sea Tales By Jack London

South Sea Tales - Jack London - Published in 1911 by MacMillan, South Sea Tales is an anthology of stories linked by their setting. Alongside London's Klondike works, his South Sea stories, of which these are a great example, come fresh from his times on board ocean going ships and boats. While his racist overtones are in evidence here, so too is London's gift for plotting and his detailed knowledge of sailing, amply demonstrated by the last story in the set The Seed of McCoy.Set aboard a ship that is on fire below deck, the story concerns the efforts of the ship's captain and the Governor of Pitcairn, acting as a pilot, to steer the doomed ship to a lagoon in which she can be beached so that the hull can be saved. To see this done, they have to overcome the South Sea Island currents, reassure the ship's crew, keep the deck corked so that the fire doesn't get fed and overcome their own doubts. The story is a minor triumph of plotting.

Most readers are familiar with Jack London's stories of the frozen northland, such as White Fang and To Light a Fire, but many critics feel he should be equally acknowledged for his fascinating stories of the South Pacific. Here is another remote corner of the world, a background for his magnificently colorful and entertaining Tales of the South Pacific. London is able to pierce the stereotype of his era concerning the "Noble Savage" and present the people who lived on these exotic islands as individuals who had to deal with the white man's intrusions, the racism, foreign diseases, biased legal systems, and brutality. These stories are based on the themes Jack London considered most important: race, culture, justice, and heroism.

South Sea Tales (1911) is a collection of short stories written by Jack London. Most stories are set in island communities, like those of Hawaii, or are set aboard a ship.

South Sea Tales (1911) is a collection of short stories written by Jack London. Most stories are set in island communities, like those of Hawaii, or are set aboard a ship.List of StoriesThe House of MapuhiThe Whale ToothMauki"Yah! Yah! Yah!"The HeathenThe Terrible SolomonsThe Inevitable White ManThe Seed of McCoyLike the celebrated Klondike Tales, the stories that comprise South Sea Tales derive their intensity from the author's own far-flung adventures, conveying an impassioned, unsparing vision borne only of experience. The powerful tales gathered here vividly evoke the turn-of-the-century colonial Pacific and its capricious tropical landscape, while also trenchantly observing the delicate interplay between imperialism and the exotic. And as Tony Horwitz asserts in his Introduction, "When London's stories click, we are utterly there, at the edge of the world and the limit of human endurance."

South Sea Tales is a collection of stories written by Jack London. Most stories are set in island communities, like those of Hawaii, or are set aboard a ship. Like the celebrated Klondike Tales, the stories that comprise South Sea Tales derive their intensit from the author's own far-flung adventures, conveying an impassioned, unsparing vision borne only of experience. The powerful tales gathered here vividly evoke the turn-of-the-century colonial Pacific and its capricious tropical landscape, while also trenchantly observing the delicate interplay between imperialism and the exotic.

South Sea Tales (1911) is a collection of short stories written by Jack London. Most stories are set in island communities, like those of Hawaii, or are set aboard a ship.

Roslyn Jolly is Lecturer in English at the University of New South Wales, Australia. She is the author of Henry James: History, Narrative, Fiction (OUP, 1993).