Lost Face

This collection gathers Jack London’s tales of the frozen North, held together by cold, isolation, and hard choices along the Klondike trails. In the title story a captured Polish exile facing torture in Russian America invents a desperate ruse to win himself a quick death. The volume also contains To Build a Fire, London’s masterpiece about a lone traveler and a dog on a route where a single mistake means the end. Other stories follow prospectors, drifters, and native peoples testing their nerve against an indifferent wilderness. Spare and unsentimental, these are London at the height of his powers as a storyteller. Free PDF and EPUB editions are available to download.