In this LOA edition, Jack London’s 5 novels and memoirs are listed here. It is a curious case that the author’s obsession with socialism blinded him to the serious problematic issues his “religion” created. He blamed capitalism, for example, for the massive scale of poverty existing in London UK which he novelized in “The People of the Abyss.” The reader, who understands the long litany of horrors socialists have inflicted upon their fellow human beings, should remember that London wrote before those horrors came about once socialists took power in Germany, Russia and China, for example. Still his writings remain imaginative in spite of the serious flaws of perspective he maintains. ( )

Stark, cynical, pessimistic but incredibly well-written the settings that Mr. London portrays really comes to life. Whether the dirt poor streets of turn of the century London or chasing trains throughout the North American continent or the disintegration of society, People of the Abyss, The Road and The Iron Heel respectively, the reader experiences what Mr. London goes through. ( )

Read Iron Heel only. A bit ponderous in the beginning because of all the socialist dialogue, but it picks up later and ended up being surprisingly enjoyable. Interesting as a near futuristic vision of social revolution, written as a fictional memoir by Avis Everhard, wife of a great socialist hero, with footnotes by a fictional historian writing ~700 years after the events she wrote about. ( )

Great. Essential reading - George Orwell's Down and Out and Wigan Pier were strongly influenced by The People of The Abyss; 1984 and other Dystopias were influenced by The Iron Heel, which was the first of the great 20th Century Dystopias. It's great to see Jack London the Socialist so well covered by Library of America. Most American anthologies and "complete" works simply ignore his socialism. ( )

Preferits: People from the Abyss i The Iron Heel ( )