Publisher's Synopsis
Lost Face By Jack London
Lost Face is a collection of seven short stories by Jack London. It takes its name from the first short story in the book, about a European adventurer in the Yukon who outwits his (American) Indian captors' plans to torture him. The book includes London's best-known short story, "To Build a Fire".
- It was the end. Subienkow had travelled a long trail of bitterness and horror, homing like a dove for the capitals of Europe, and here, farther away than ever, in Russian America, the trail ceased.
- He sat in the snow, arms tied behind him, waiting the torture. He stared curiously before him at a huge Cossack, prone in the snow, moaning in his pain. The men had finished handling the giant and turned him over to the women.
- That they exceeded the fiendishness of the men, the man's cries attested. Subienkow looked on, and shuddered. He was not afraid to die. He had carried his life too long in his hands, on that weary trail from Warsaw to Nulato, to shudder at mere dying. But he objected to the torture. It offended his soul.
- And this offence, in turn, was not due to the mere pain he must endure, but to the sorry spectacle the pain would make of him. He knew that he would pray, and beg, and entreat, even as Big Ivan and the others that had gone before. This would not be nice. To pass out bravely and cleanly, with a smile and a jest-ah! That would have been the way.
- But to lose control, to have his soul upset by the pangs of the flesh, to screech and gibber like an ape, to become the veriest beast-ah, that was what was so terrible.
- The first anthology of short stories by Jack London, Lost Face tells seven stories about the Klondike short stories. In "Lost Face," the fur thief Subienkow faces gruesome torture and execution by a tribe of Indians, armed with only his wits. "Trust" is a story about the dangers of the Yukon River. Jack London's best known short story, "To Build a Fire," tells the story of a nameless man and his dog attempting to survive in the frozen Northern Territory. In "That Spot," the eponymous Spot is a very unusual Yukon sled dog. "Flush of Gold" is a love story set against the harsh backdrop of the Yukon. "The Passing of Marcus O'Brien" deals the tale of the fair-but-tough Judge Marcus O'Brien in the settlement of Red Cow. "The Wit of Porportuk" tells the tale of El-Soo and Porportuk, two Indians among the white settlers.
