Other editions of book SONGS OF A SOURDOUGH

Songs of a Sourdough is a book of poetry published in 1907 by Robert W. Service. In the United States, the book was published under the title The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses.The book is well known for its verse about the Klondike Gold Rush in the Yukon a decade earlier, particularly the long, humorous ballads, "The Shooting of Dan McGrew" and "The Cremation of Sam McGee."Songs of a Sourdough has sold more than three million copies.Service, an employee of the Imperial Bank of Canada, was posted to Whitehorse, Yukon, in 1904. He took part in the extremely active Whitehorse social life. As was popular at the time he recited at concerts things like "Casey at the Bat" and "Gunga Din", but they were getting stale.One day (Service later wrote), while pondering what to recite at an upcoming church concert he met E.J. "Stroller" White, editor of the Whitehorse Star. White suggested: "Why don’t you write a poem for it? Give us something about our own bit of earth. We sure would appreciate it. There’s a rich paystreak waiting for someone to work. Why don’t you go in and stake it?"Out on a walk one Saturday night, Service heard the sounds of revelry coming from a saloon, and the phrase "A bunch of the boys were whooping it up" popped into his head. Inspired, he ran to the bank to write it down (almost being shot as a burglar), and by the next morning "The Shooting of Dan McGrew" was complete.A month or so later he heard a gold rush yarn from a Dawson mining man about a fellow who cremated his pal. He spent the night walking in the woods composing "The Cremation of Sam McGee," and wrote it down from memory the next day.Other verses quickly followed. In the early spring he stood above the heights of Miles Canyon and the line "I have gazed on naked grandeur where there’s nothing else to gaze on" came into his mind and again he hammered out a complete poem “The Call of the Wild". Conversations with locals led Service to write about things he had not seen (some of which had not actually happened) as well. He did not set foot in Dawson City until 1908, arriving in the Klondike ten years after the Gold Rush when his renown as a writer was already established.After having collected enough poems for a book, Service sent the poems to his father, who had emigrated to Toronto, and asked him to find a printing house so they could make it into a booklet. He enclosed a check to cover the costs and intended to give these booklets away to his friends in Whitehorse for Christmas. His father took the manuscript to William Briggs in Toronto, whose employees loved the book. The foreman and printers recited the ballads while they worked. A salesman read the proofs out loud as they came off the typesetting machines. An enterprising salesman sold 1700 copies in advance orders from galley proofs. The publisher sent Robert's check back to him and offered a ten percent royalty contract for the book.Service's book, Songs of a Sourdough, was an immediate success. It went through seven printings even before its official release date. Ultimately, Briggs sold fifteen impressions in 1907. That same year there was an edition in New York, Philadelphia, and London. The London publisher, T. Fisher Unwin, struck a twenty-third printing in 1910, and thirteen more by 1917.When copies of the book reached Whitehorse, Robert's own minister took him aside to let him know how wicked were his stories. Service hung his head in shame. But, that summer, tourists from the south arrived in Whitehorse looking for the famous poet; and he autographed many of his books.Service eventually earned in excess of $100,000 for Songs of a Sourdough alone.

TABLE OF CONTENTS: 1.) The Law of the Yukon -- 2.) The Parson's Son -- 3.) The Spell of the Yukon -- 4.) The Call of the Wild -- 5.) The Lone Trail -- 6.) The Heart of the Sourdough -- 7.) The Three Voices -- 8.) The Pines; The Harpy -- 9.) The Lure of Little Voices -- 10.) The Song of the Wage Slave -- 11.) Grin -- 12.) The Shooting of Dan McGrew -- 13.) The Cremation of Sam McGhee -- 14.) My Madonna -- 15.) Unforgotten -- 16.) The Reckoning -- 17.) Quatrains -- 18.) The Men that Don't Fit in -- 19.) Music in the Bush -- 20.) The Rhyme of the Remittance Man -- 21.) The Low Down White -- 22.) The Little Old Log Cabin -- 23.) The Younger Son -- 24.) The March of the Dead -- 25.) Fighting Mac -- 26.) The Woman and the Angel -- 27.) The Rhyme of the Restless Ones -- 28.) New Years Eve -- 29.) Comfort -- 30.) Premonition -- 31.) The Tramps -- 32.) Lenvoi . . . . . . . . . . Reputedly the best-selling poetry collection of the 20th century, 'Songs of a Sourdough' is best known for Robert W. Service's classic Yukon ballads. Service was born in Preston, Lancashire, and grew up in Scotland. In his twenties, he made his way to Canada and settled in the Yukon where he worked as a bank clerk but evidently dreamed of more adventurous pursuits. Service's readings of his poems show that he could adopt either a Scottish or North American accent. Here they are read in an accent that is not too far removed from the place of his birth. - Summary by Phil Benson

Robert Service was born in 1874 and grew up in Scotland as the oldest of 10 siblings. Even as a child he craved excitement, but his energy was channeled into the quiet life of a bank clerk. He did enroll in the English Language and Literature program at the University of Glasgow, leaving after challenging a lecturer to a fistfight when the lecturer questioned Service’s ability despite his top grades. Bored, he departed for Canada. His family bought him a Buffalo Bill type outfit from an auction for the trip; not entirely practical but thoughtful! Once in Canada, Service traveled all the way across the country to Vancouver Island and ironically found himself working for the Canadian Bank of Commerce. The job allowed him to live his dreams of frontier life but without the hardships. It was in 1906 that he became a famous and well-paid poet with Songs of a Sourdough. Later, Service would write The Trail of Ninety-Eight, A Northland Romance, which would be produced as a movie in 1928 by MGM. He continued to write his whole life, penning Rhymes of a Red Cross Man (1912), Poisoned Paradise (1922), Why Not Grow Young? (1928) and Lyrics of a Lowbrow (1951). He died at his villa in France in 1958, the famous scribe of a frontier life that he profited enormously in describing but whose privations he avoided.

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