Shattered by tropical disease and a gruelling voyage across the Pacific, Jack London spent many of the last months of his life writing in Hawaii. His search for untouched civilizations had revealed cruelty and ignorance beside startling beauty, a flawed paradise. Tales of the Pacific is the fruit of this quest. The stories embody the power and harshness of Hemingway and demonstrate a mastery of the short-story form equal to that of Conrad or Kipling. They spring from London's desire to reconcile the dream of an unfallen world with the harsh reality of twentieth-century materialism.