A theme current in much of London's work is a Darwinian struggle to survive. His works epitomize a sort of literary naturalism. And never more so than in the collection of stories contained in South Sea Tales. Probably the most notable of them is the last one in the collection, "The Seed of McCoy," where a schooner in distress anchors outside Pitcairn's Island, the home of the descendants who mutinied aboard the HMS Bounty. During the course of the story, McCoy recounts the fate of the mutineers, and the captain of the endangered schooner realizes it is the blood of those men that runs through McCoy's veins and is all that stands between him and death. "The Seed of McCoy" is also one of London's best pure adventure tales, with disaster nipping at the heels of the crew and captain unceasingly until the very end.

As South Sea stories go, these are among the very best. But always look beneath the mere adventure to the motivations that power London's stories. The White Man's Burden, the natural virtues of the Wild Men of the islands, the overwhelming forces of nature--they are all there commenting on our ability to survive.

These stories really ranged from 1-3 stars. Most of the first ones were pretty good. A lot of them were way too long and incredibly dull.

The hurricane story was best, then each got progressively less. Not sure if the boat on fire was a metaphor, don't understand how they could keep sailing it.

Je n'ai pas forcément trouvé le sens de ce livre.... Je suis déçue malheureusement

I read White Fang and Call of the Wild when I was a kid and hated them. But now as an adult I find myself wanting to revisit authors and books I didn't like as a child and seeing if I can enjoy them now. And I don't know about White Fang or Call of the Wild but I absolutely loved this book. Which is strange because I'm not really one for realistic fiction nor do I really have any interest in the South Seas. But I am a sucker for olden day adventure stories and I think I may have liked this one so much because it reminded me of one of my favorite books as a child, Call it Courage By Armstrong Sperry.

This book is a compilation of short stories about adventures around the South Seas, most likely inspired by Jack London's many travels and adventures. Big warning if you are sensitive to non-political correctness, due to the time this was written there are racial slurs, there are ideals of race and gender that are outdated and can be offensive. With classic literature such as this you just need to take a book like this with a grain of salt.

My favorite story in this book is called The Heathen. This story almost brought me to tears at the end and I really wish it didn't end.
But all the stories in this book were very enjoyable for me. I'm glad I took the time to try out Jack London again, maybe now I'll give White Fang or Call of the Wild another shot.

3.5