and the tale appears
intact in my English edition, published in 1921. And now, gathering
material for what will be the final Jack London collections, I cannot
but think that his first printed story will have unusual interest for
his readers of all ages.

The boy Jack's unexpected success in that virgin venture naturally
spurred him to further effort. It was, for one thing, the pleasantest
way he had ever earned so much money, even if it lacked the element of
physical prowess and danger that had marked those purple days with the
oyster pirates, and, later, equally exciting passages with the Fish
Patrol. He only waited to catch up on sleep lost while hammering out
"Typhoon Off the Coast of Japan," before applying himself to new
fiction. That was what was the matter with it: it was sheer fiction in
place of the white-hot realism of the "true story" that had brought him
distinction. This second venture he afterward termed "gush." It was
promptly rejected by the editor of the _Call_. Lacking experience
in such matters, Jack could not know why. And it did not occur to him to
submit his manuscript elsewhere. His fire was dampened; he gave over
writing and continued with the jute mill and innocent social diversion
in company with Louis Shattuck and his friends, who had superseded
Jack's wilder comrades and hazards of bay- and sea-faring. This period,
following the publication of "Typhoon Off the Coast of Japan," is
touched upon in his book "John Barleycorn."

The next that one hears of attempts at writing is when, during his
tramping episode, he showed some stories to his aunt, Mrs. Everhard, in
St. Joseph, Michigan. And in the ensuing months of that year, 1894, she
received other romances mailed at his stopping places along the eastward
route, alone or with Kelly's Industrial Army. As yet it had not sunk
into his consciousness that his unyouthful knowledge of life in the raw
would be the means of success in literature; therefore he discoursed of
imaginary things and persons, lords and ladies, days of chivalry and
what not--anything but out of his priceless first-hand lore. At the same
time, however, he kept a small diary which, in the days when he had
found himself, helped in visualizing his tramp life, in "The Road."

The only out and out "juvenile" in the Jack London list prior to his
death is "The Cruise of the Dazzler," published in 1902. At that it is a
good and authentic maritime study of its kind, and not lacking in h