Physical description

Hard cover book. Smoke and Shorty
Author: Jack London
Publisher: Mills & Boon
Date: 1920-1940s
Further Information: A plain volume bound in pale blue cloth, with a stuck-on library classification label ("PAT FIC LON") on the spine and no visible date, edition statement, or printer's imprint on the pages shown the copyright/date page. There's no gilt decoration, no illustrated boards, and no dust jacket.

Publication type

fiction

Inscriptions & markings

The label on the spine with typed text PAT FIC LON
Paste down front end paper has a sticker from Warrnambool Public Library covered by a sticker from Corangamite Regional Library Service. Front loose end paper has a stamp from Corangamite Regional Library Service

Summary

"Smoke and Shorty," first published in 1920, is a collection of linked short stories by Jack London, not a single continuous novel it follows two Klondike Gold Rush partners, the tenderfoot-turned-sourdough Christopher "Smoke" Bellew and his grizzled sidekick "Shorty," through a series of adventures in the frozen North. It is actually the second half of London's larger Smoke Bellew story-cycle: the first batch of stories, covering Smoke's initiation into the North, had already appeared in the 1912 volume Smoke Bellew, and this volume collects the remaining six tales to complete the series: "The Story of the Little Man," "The Hanging of Cultus George," "The Mistake of Creation," "A Flutter in Eggs," "The Town-site for Tra-lee," and "The Wonder of Woman." These stories mix comic set-pieces such as a wager over an omelette and a real-estate swindle with harsher tales of survival, justice, and hardship on the trail, all set against the Klondike Gold Rush backdrop that London knew firsthand from his own 1897–98 prospecting trip.