Books with title On the Night You Were Born

Early in “the unluckiest year of his life” (1913), during which his dream home in California’s Sonoma Valley burnt down, Jack London, aged thirty-seven, published the short-story collection The Night-Born (Labor, 329). The ten tales in it range from negligible potboilers to such gems as the evocative sketch of a soldier’s life “War”, and the suspenseful fight story “The Mexican”, set during the Mexican Revolution (c. 1910–1920) and embodying London’s “finest allegory of the revolutionary spirit” (Labor, Leitz, Shepard, xxix).

Jack London was an American novelist, journalist, social-activist and short-story writer whose works deal romantically with elemental struggles for survival. At his peak, he was the highest paid and the most popular of all living writers. Because of early financial difficulties, he was largely self educated past grammar school. London drew heavily on his life experiences in his writing. He spent time in the Klondike during the Gold Rush and at various times was an oyster pirate, a seaman, a sealer, and a hobo. His first work was published in 1898.