John Griffith London was an American novelist, journalist, and social activist. He was born into a turbulent bohemian world in San Francisco, the child of Flora Wellman and, she believed, her common-law husband, William Henry Chaney, an itinerant astrologer who deserted her. Jack London wrote fifty books on extremely diverse subjects, including 198 short stories. Western writer and historian Dale L. Walker writes: “London's true métier was the short story ... London's true genius lay in the short form, 7,500 words and under, where the flood of images in his teeming brain and the innate power of his narrative gift were at once constrained and freed. His stories that run longer than the magic 7,500 generally - but certainly not always - could have benefited from self-editing.” Goodbye, Jack was first published in 1909. One of the richest and most eligible bachelors in Hawaii, a paragon of courage and fortitude, discovers that his lady love is on the point of being interned on the island of Molokai where lepers from all the Hawaiian islands are compounded for life with no hope of ever returning. Above and beyond the question of the treatment of leprosy in those enlightened days, the critical tone of this seemingly-straightforward social fable is established from the start by the following semi-sarcastic and bitingly bitter remarks about the history of the American colonization of those islands. Listen online to free English audiobook "Goodbye, Jack” on our website to experience Jack London's short story.
