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In the summer of 1902 Jack London bought a set of second-hand clothes, sewed a gold sovereign into the armpit of the jacket, and went to live for about seven weeks among the poor of London’s East End, sleeping in the casual wards of the workhouses. Five years earlier, aged 21, he had joined the Klondike Gold Rush and come home with scurvy and less than five dollars in gold dust. Both trips became books. Born in San Francisco in 1876, he published about fifty of them before he died at 40 on his ranch in Sonoma County: dog stories that are still read in schools, sea novels, a socialist dystopia, a memoir about drink. This guide covers his 14 key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 14 key books · 1900–1915 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Jack London’s best-known books are The Call of the Wild (1903) and White Fang (1906), followed by The Sea-Wolf (1904), Martin Eden (1909) and his undercover report from London’s East End, The People of the Abyss (1903). Start with The People of the Abyss if you come for his journalism, or The Call of the Wild for the fiction. Both draw on things he lived through himself.
Where to Start with Jack London
If you want his immersive journalism
→ The People of the Abyss (1903) — seven weeks among the poor of the East End.
If you want his most famous book
→ The Call of the Wild (1903) — the short novel that made his name.
If you want a sea novel
→ The Sea-Wolf (1904) — a literary critic at the mercy of Wolf Larsen.
If you want his most personal novel
→ Martin Eden (1909) — a sailor who teaches himself to write.
14 Jack London Books, in Order
The Son of the Wolf
His first book: nine stories of the Yukon, most of them first printed in the Overland Monthly, six featuring the frontiersman known as the Malemute Kid. One of them, “An Odyssey of the North”, appeared in The Atlantic Monthly in January 1900 and paid him three times what he had earned for the first five stories together. The collection made his name as the writer of the Klondike.
The Call of the Wild
Buck, a big St Bernard–Scotch shepherd cross, is stolen from Judge Miller’s ranch in California’s Santa Clara Valley and sold as a sled dog in the Klondike. After a series of cruel masters he bonds with John Thornton, and after Thornton’s death he runs with the wolves. It was serialised in The Saturday Evening Post before the book appeared in 1903; London took 2,000 dollars outright instead of royalties. It has been filmed several times, from 1935 to the 2020 version with Harrison Ford.
The People of the Abyss
In the summer of 1902 London spent about seven weeks in the East End, dressed in second-hand clothes, queuing for the casual wards of the workhouses, sleeping rough and talking to the men he met, with a rented room nearby as a base. He wrote it up “with an attitude of mind which I may best liken to that of the explorer”. It came thirty years before George Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London. London is quoted as saying in later years: “Of all my books, I love most The People of the Abyss.”
The Sea-Wolf
Humphrey Van Weyden, a literary critic, survives a ferry collision in San Francisco Bay and is picked up by the sealing schooner Ghost, whose captain, Wolf Larsen, is brutal, well-read and a convinced materialist. Larsen makes him a cabin boy, then mate; later the writer Maud Brewster is pulled from the sea too. The first printing of 40,000 copies sold out before publication, on the strength of The Call of the Wild. It has been adapted for the screen more than a dozen times.
White Fang
The mirror of The Call of the Wild: a wolf-dog born in the wild is owned in turn by Grey Beaver, by the dog-fighter Beauty Smith, and by Weedon Scott, the first master who treats him with kindness and takes him home to California. There he saves Scott’s father, a judge, from an escaped convict. It ran in Outing magazine from May to October 1906; a 1991 film starred Ethan Hawke.
The Road
Sketches of his months as a teenage hobo in 1894, riding freight trains across America, learning the slang and tricks of the road. At Niagara Falls he was arrested for vagrancy and given thirty days in the Erie County Penitentiary in Buffalo, which he describes in one of the book’s best-known chapters.
The Iron Heel
A dystopia written as a found manuscript: Avis Everhard’s account of her husband Ernest, a socialist leader, and the rise of an American oligarchy that crushes the labour movement, annotated by a scholar named Anthony Meredith centuries later. George Orwell called it “a very remarkable prophecy of the rise of Fascism”. Part of chapter 7 was taken almost word for word from a 1901 essay by Frank Harris, who exposed the overlap in 1909.
Martin Eden
A young sailor from Oakland teaches himself to write in order to win Ruth Morse, a university student from a well-off family; she gives him up just before his success arrives, and fame leaves him empty. Ruth was modelled on London’s first love, Mabel Applegarth, and the poet Brissenden on his friend George Sterling. London insisted the book was an attack on individualism, not an autobiography. Pietro Marcello moved it to Naples in a 2019 film; Luca Marinelli won the Volpi Cup at Venice for the title role.
Lost Face
Seven stories, including the 1908 version of “To Build a Fire”, his most anthologised story: a newcomer to the Yukon ignores an old-timer’s advice, travels alone with a husky on a day of extreme cold, and cannot keep his fire alight. An earlier, milder version from 1902, in which the man survives, is a different story altogether.
Burning Daylight
Elam Harnish, called Burning Daylight, makes a fortune in the Yukon of the 1890s, then takes on the financiers of San Francisco and becomes as hard as they are, until a stenographer, Dede Mason, draws him to a ranch in the Sonoma hills. Serialised in the New York Herald in 1910, it was one of the best-selling books of that year and the best-selling book of London’s lifetime.
John Barleycorn
London’s account of his life with drink, from tasting beer as a small child through the waterfront saloons of Oakland to the heavy drinking of his successful years, written partly as an apology to his wife Charmian. Its candour drew sermons from pulpits and praise from the temperance movement, and it is credited with helping push America towards Prohibition.
The Valley of the Moon
Saxon and Billy Roberts, a young working-class couple in Oakland, lose their baby and nearly each other in a wave of violent strikes. They leave the city on foot to look for land of their own, pass through Carmel’s artists’ colony, and settle in the Sonoma Valley, where London himself had his ranch. It was filmed in 1914.
The Star Rover
Darrell Standing, a professor serving a life sentence for murder in San Quentin, is laced into the canvas straitjacket for days at a time and escapes it by leaving his body and reliving past lives. London drew the prison scenes from interviews with the former convict Ed Morrell, who also appears in the novel. It was also published as The Jacket.
The Scarlet Plague
In 2073, sixty years after a pandemic emptied the world in 2013, an old man called Granser, once a Berkeley professor named James Howard Smith, tells his half-wild grandsons in the hills near San Francisco how civilisation fell. It was serialised in The London Magazine in 1912 and published as a book in 1915; it was widely reread during the Covid-19 pandemic.
In What Order to Read Jack London
Nothing in London continues from one book to the next, so you can read by subject. The two dog novels make a natural pair: The Call of the Wild takes a tame dog into the wild, White Fang brings a wild one into the house, and they are best read in that order.
Publication order shows a writer moving from the Klondike stories that made him famous to the books with an argument: The People of the Abyss, The Iron Heel, John Barleycorn. Read Martin Eden after a few of the others, so you recognise how much of London went into it.
A reading path
1. The Call of the Wild (1903)
2. The People of the Abyss (1903)
3. The Sea-Wolf (1904)
4. Martin Eden (1909)
5. John Barleycorn (1913)
Everything Else Jack London Published
Beyond the 14 key books: 35 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Other novels
14
14 books · 1902–1963
- 1902A Daughter of the Snowshis first novel, set in the Klondike
- 1902The Cruise of the Dazzlera boys’ adventure on San Francisco Bay
- 1903The Kempton-Wace Lettersan exchange of letters on love, written with Anna Strunsky
- 1905The Gamea short novel about a young boxer
- 1907Before Adama prehistoric tale told through ancestral dreams
- 1911Adventurea plantation in the Solomon Islands
- 1912Smoke Bellewlinked Klondike tales of a city journalist gone north
- 1913The Abysmal Brutea boxing novella
- 1914The Mutiny of the Elsinorea voyage round Cape Horn
- 1916The Little Lady of the Big Housea love triangle on a California ranch
- 1917Jerry of the Islandsa dog in the Solomon Islands, published after his death
- 1917Michael, Brother of Jerryits companion
- 1920Hearts of Threean adventure written for the screen
- 1963The Assassination Bureau, Ltdunfinished at his death, completed by Robert L. Fish
Short story collections
16
16 books · 1901–1922
- 1901The God of His Fathersmore stories of the Yukon
- 1902Children of the Frostthe North seen from its Indigenous peoples
- 1904The Faith of MenKlondike stories
- 1905Tales of the Fish Patrolhis youth on San Francisco Bay
- 1906Moon-Facestories
- 1907Love of Lifeincludes the title story of a starving prospector
- 1911When God Laughsstories
- 1911South Sea Talesstories of the Pacific
- 1912A Son of the Sunlinked South Seas stories
- 1912The House of Pridestories of Hawaii
- 1913The Night-Bornstories
- 1914The Strength of the Strongstories
- 1916The Turtles of Tasmanthe last collection in his lifetime
- 1918The Red Onepublished after his death
- 1919On the Makaloa Matstories of Hawaii
- 1922Dutch Couragestories
Essays, travel and plays
5
5 books · 1905–1917
- 1905The War of the Classessocialist essays
- 1910Revolution, and Other Essaysessays
- 1911The Cruise of the Snarkthe 1907 voyage across the Pacific
- 1916The Acorn Plantera play
- 1917The Human Driftessays
The years · 1876–1916
Quick facts about Jack London
- Known for
- Jack London is known for his stories of the Klondike Gold Rush, above all the dog novels The Call of the Wild and White Fang, and for living the experiences he wrote about.
- 1876
- Born in San Francisco
- 1897
- Joins the Klondike Gold Rush
- 1907
- Sails the Pacific on the Snark
- 1916
- Dies at Glen Ellen, aged 40
- Born
- 12 January 1876, San Francisco, California
- Died
- 22 November 1916, on his ranch at Glen Ellen, California, aged 40
- Klondike
- Went north in July 1897 and wintered near Dawson City; home in 1898 with scurvy
- Politics
- Socialist; ran for mayor of Oakland in 1901 and 1905
- Married
- Bess Maddern (1900–1904), then Charmian Kittredge (1905)
- Home
- His ranch at Glen Ellen, now Jack London State Historic Park
The red mark is 1903: The Call of the Wild, the book that made him famous.
How Jack London Writes: Experience First
London wrote out of what he had done. The Klondike winter of 1897–98 fed his first stories and both dog novels; his teenage years on San Francisco Bay fed Tales of the Fish Patrol; a summer as a hobo became The Road; and in 1902 he went to the East End to see poverty for himself rather than read about it, which makes The People of the Abyss an early piece of undercover reporting.
His style is plain, fast and physical, close to the naturalism of the time: people and animals are tested against cold, hunger and stronger opponents, and the narrator rarely softens it. “To Build a Fire” is the purest example, a single man on a single day. He also borrowed freely from what he read, which led to several plagiarism disputes he never fully shook off.
The other half of London is political. He was a socialist who wrote The Iron Heel, a dystopia Orwell admired, and Martin Eden, which he called an attack on individualism. For writers who share his taste for adventure and first-hand reporting, see Authors like Jack London.
Frequently asked questions about Jack London’s books
How many books has Jack London written?
About fifty in all, published between 1900 and his death in 1916, with several more after it. This page lists 49: the 14 key books, from The Son of the Wolf (1900) to The Scarlet Plague (1915), and 35 more novels, story collections, essay books and a play.
What are Jack London’s books in order?
The key books are The Son of the Wolf (1900), The Call of the Wild (1903), The People of the Abyss (1903), The Sea-Wolf (1904), White Fang (1906), The Road (1907), The Iron Heel (1908), Martin Eden (1909), Lost Face (1910), Burning Daylight (1910), John Barleycorn (1913), The Valley of the Moon (1913), The Star Rover (1915) and The Scarlet Plague (1915).
Where should I start with Jack London?
The People of the Abyss if you are interested in his journalism, or The Call of the Wild if you want his fiction at its most famous. Both are short.
What is Jack London’s most famous book?
The Call of the Wild (1903), the story of Buck, a dog stolen from California and sold into the Klondike. It is still widely read in schools and has been filmed several times.
Did Jack London really live in the slums to write The People of the Abyss?
Yes. In the summer of 1902 he spent about seven weeks in London’s East End in second-hand clothes, sleeping in the casual wards of the workhouses and on the streets, with a rented room nearby as a base. The book came out in 1903, three decades before Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London.
Was Jack London in the Klondike Gold Rush?
Yes. He left for the Yukon in July 1897, aged 21, spent the winter in a cabin south of Dawson City, caught scurvy and came home in 1898 with less than five dollars in gold dust. Those months fed The Son of the Wolf, The Call of the Wild, White Fang and many later stories.
Should I read The Call of the Wild or White Fang first?
The Call of the Wild (1903). London wrote White Fang (1906) as its mirror image: one dog goes from the house to the wild, the other from the wild to the house.
Which Jack London books have been filmed?
Many. The Sea-Wolf has more than a dozen screen versions; The Call of the Wild was filmed in 1935, 1972 and 2020; White Fang in 1991 with Ethan Hawke; and Martin Eden in 2019 by Pietro Marcello, set in Naples.
How did Jack London die?
He died on 22 November 1916 on his ranch at Glen Ellen, California, aged 40. His death certificate gives uremia; he was also ill with dysentery and taking morphine. Rumours of suicide followed, but most biographers think an accidental morphine overdose made the kidney failure worse.
Why is Jack London controversial?
For his views on race and for plagiarism charges. He wrote the 1904 essay “The Yellow Peril” and supported eugenics, and in 1996 Whitehorse in the Yukon renamed its Jack London Boulevard after protests. Frank Harris showed in 1909 that part of The Iron Heel copied an essay of his, and Egerton R. Young said The Call of the Wild borrowed from his book on sled dogs, which London acknowledged using as a source.
Footnotes
- Jack London — Wikipedia
- Jack London bibliography — Jack London International
- “The White Silence” — Library of America, Story of the Week
- The Scene of the Crime: The People of the Abyss — Socialist Standard, 1974
- The Iron Heel — Wikipedia
- Martin Eden — Wikipedia
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“Buck did not read the newspapers, or he would have known that trouble was brewing, not alone for himself, but for every tide-water dog, strong of muscle and with warm, long hair, from Puget Sound to San Diego.”
— Jack London, The Call of the Wild (1903), the first line
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