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The Scarlet Plague

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Sixty years after a plague killed billions of people, an old man tries to convey to his three grandchildren what the world was once like so long ago.

The cultured, civilized world of mass communication and technology abruptly gave way to a primitive, savage world of cruelty and barbarism. The survivors and their descendents now live like their stone-age forebears: wearing animal skins, hunting with bows and arrows and believing in superstition.

In describing the plague's onslaught, the old man tells his grandchildren of the chaos and degradation that wiped out civilization. Money became worthless, the streets of burning cities were littered with corpses, animals grew wild as mankind lost his supremacy over nature.

The three boys have a lot of trouble understanding the words "Granser" uses, due to their lack of education. (Even the word "education" is something the boys have never heard of.) Nevertheless, the old man does the best he can, in spite of the children's limited vocabulary.

It's interesting to compare "The Scarlet Plague", which was written in 1912, to the more widely-known "Earth Abides". Both books are set in the same place. They both contain that sense of nostalgia, where old men, left over from the "lost world" yearn for a past that was more attractive.

This could well be the blueprint for life-after-the-apocalypse stories. If this story hadn't been written, their would probably never have been such books as "Earth Abides", "The Day of the Triffids", "Empty World" or "The Stand."

I found this book among my ninth birthay presents and loved it from the first page. what got to me was the description of a way in which everything we know could be destroyed in a few weeks. Also my boyish imagination and dark side were thrilled about the possibility of being left alone in a city, free to do anything i wanted. As the book advanced in explaining the effects of solitude and the need for information about what had happened I found myself questioning my readiness to face such a situation. I highly recommend this book as a way to introduce science fiction to new readers. You must be aware of several objectionable premises set by the author in terms of a racist future society but also a few "wish it were like that" plots which place as the highest paid occupations those like the ones performed by a junior poetry proffesor. My short review has to end by saying that this book has been a dear memory of mine for the past 29 years and writing about it and recommending it to others it's a way to say thank you to Mr. Jack London a great writer and a reason why today I rather read than almost anything else in my spare time. Thank you, and please forgive my primitive english. Milton Roussel, mroussel@david.intertel.hn

The content of the book may seem to be a re-tread, but it is in fact one of the very first post-apocalyptic plague stories. It set the mold for later versions, such as George R. Stewart's "Earth Abides," Pat Frank's "Alas, Babylon," Nevil Shute's "On the Beach," and of course, Stephen King's "The Stand," amongst others.

First off in this book, the world as we know it is already gone. Out of billions, there are now only a few *hundred* people left on the planet - all scattered, all isolated ...all neo-lithic. There were not enough people left with the know-how to restart society and at the story's opening, there is only one man alive that even remembers the old world.

Furthermore, this book is not the product of an "All are created equal" mentality. No, this is a book that reflects the thinking of a society that sharply divided between nobles and peasants: the former were as unto the gods, while the latter were barely rabble, just mangy curs that needed stay in their cages ...or, be mercifully put out of their misery altogether. It is to the utter horror of the narrator that the debased, pig-like lowborn eventually take rule over the corpse of high society and make it as fetid as themselves.

Most of the book reflects the narrator's callous, maliciously aristocratic view of the world, both past and present. Every low-born in this book is detestable; every high-born is beautiful, desirable and ultimately, profaned and desecrated. The book's characterizations are the stark, black-and-white depictions of a deeply autocratic mindset.

The narrator is disturbingly aghast at the thought of "the servants taking over" the world with their "grubby little hands." Every depiction of a non-noble seems to include words like "savage," "stupid," and "animal" in them. For a wearied, forlorn teller of ended glory, there is a frightening amount of venom streaking through his glorious recall of things past. The narrator's narrow-minded adoration of the high-born (and their lofty pursuits) contrasts with his horror and overwhelming disgust over "the great unwashed." Disturbing is not quite the word for the narrator's view of things.

While far from PC myself, some years ago I took Stewart to task for his dehumanizing descriptions of the mentally challenged; London's book here makes Stewart seem a gleaming saint by contrast. I realize both are products of their times; I do not so much decry that such thoughts were common - only that they were unnecessary, even in a world such as that.

Secondly, I've noticed this book's tone is quite a bit different than Stewart's "Earth Abides," (its closest, to me, subsequent corollary). London's book takes an extremely dim view of human beings in general, an attitude that gives even a dedicated cynic like me some pause.

This book is nothing like the noble, stoic (and *egalitarian*) characterizations of Shute's "On the Beach" or Frank's "Alas, Babylon." There is no final embrace of family in the defiance of looming death; no, here the children are cast into the gutters upon first sign of infection. Women are not prized and valued as mothers of a new Eden here (a limited view, but quite representative of its time); no, here they are subjugated, degraded, and beaten with vigorous, even joyful savagery... they are purely victims of brutish man-beasts.

Nobody dies peacefully here - there is no dignity or nobility or self-sacrifice at any point throughout; no, all persons here are frenzied, heartless carnivores sprinting about in a cyclone of cruelty and depredation... or, their helpless victims.

This is a far more frightful end to civilization than even Stephen King's (much) later interpretation. There's not one shred of beauty or kindness in it from start to finish. It's pure survivalism, dog-eat-dog, and the worst of the worst here live to spread their malignant existence to the rest of the world.

I mean, even in Shute's "On the Beach," where by the book's end every single person on earth is *dead*, even with Shute there was some beauty, some love, something hopeful ...even at the end. With this book, however, although humanity ultimately survives, it feels far darker, bleaker, and much more hopeless than even Shute's depiction of total nuclear armageddon.

As for the book itself, I was glad to finally read it after all these years of hearing about it. It's been out of print for almost a hundred years from what I can tell, and all I could ever find was its far briefer form as a magazine article.

Again, it is representative of its era and its culture and for this, I am quite glad to add it to my collection. While it may sound strange to say this, it is perhaps the bleakest post-apocalyptic tale I've ever read, and I've read dozens.

As for approach to the content itself, Stewart's "Earth Abides" decidedly ignores the fall of civilization itself, focusing instead upon its slow decay amidst a resurgent nature; in contrast, London focuses upon the days of society's fall, glances briefly upon the intervening years, and leaves an acrimonious bounty of reproach upon the depleted present.

Shute's "On the Beach" was compellingly lovely in its dark depiction of humanity's last, silent gasp amidst the void. Frank's "Alas, Babylon" was the defiant cry of life in the midst of great death. Stewart's "Earth Abides" was a beautiful dirge, eloquently mourning the passing of a once-glorious world amidst an ever-decaying and greatly-diminished present.

...but, "The Scarlet Plague" reads like a spit of contemptuous bile onto the ashen ground of civilization's humbled remains.

For me personally, it's a mixed read; it's likely that my years of anticipation for this book (and frequent study of its numerous descendants) have colored the experience for me, so I don't know how objective I can really be here. I suspect I will have to re-read this a few times before I can find its "voice." I suppose I'm just surprised to read a post-apocalyptic tale with such bile; maybe that's an odd thing to say, but it's how I feel about this book.

The Scarlet Plague (Illustrated Edition) (Dodo Press)This is the book which first introduced me to "science fiction". It belonged to my father and I first read it in the late 1950's. I have read a great many "end of the world" books since then, but none has stuck in my mind quite so well as this. I know there are those critics who take issue with "sexism" and other issues, but given the historical climate of this book, I believe Mr. London has made a significant statement about humanity and survival that stands the test of the ages.

I kindda enjoyed this book. I had never heard of it before and have read a lot of Jack London. Its a good quick read, not to deep or anything but well worth the time.

This was a really short read. I believe this is one of the earlier works in the "end of the world" genre, and it somewhat sets the mold for later books like The Earth Abides, The Stand, etc.

The story is told from the perspective of Granser, who is ~87 years old and he tells his grand kids about the "good ole days". Since the end of the world as he knew it 60 years ago, things have drastically changed. The grand kids, who lack Granser's college education and large vocabulary, constantly complain about his big words, and I even had to look up several uncommon words!

I found the story interesting, but it seemed half baked. The author sets up the beginning quite well, but doesn't really develop a problem to solve or an ending. It is simply a recounting of the plague that wiped out most of the world in the year 2012. It seemed strange to me the author would choose to set the book 100 years into the future instead of making it in his own century.

The Scarlet Plague might not be the absolute grand-daddy of apocalypse by plague stories (Mary Shelley's The Last Man was written 75 years earlier) but it's certainly one of the first, and it's obviously a base on which more recent authors have built their works. Published in 1912 by Jack London (of Sea Wolf, White Fang, and The Call of the Wild fame), The Scarlet Plague is the first example I know of of the elderly survivor telling the story of the apocalypse to those born after it.

In this case, the survivor is James Howard Smith, Professor of English at Berkeley. He is the last person alive who lived before the plague that killed almost everyone in the world, 60 years earlier. Now, he sits around a campfire with his grandsons, who he calls savages, and describes the events of the last days of the old world.

And the story he tells would be instantly recognizable to anyone who's read The Stand or similar books. The plague comes on without warning, and kills within an hour. People try to sequester themselves in their homes, but once one person is infected the disease ravages entire families. He specifically mentions governments covering up the reality of how dangerous the plague is, bodies piled in the streets, violence, murder and mayhem.

He flees San Francisco, meets up with a handful of other survivors, and then their descendants begin to form tribal groups known as the Chauffeurs, the Santa Rosans, the Sacrementos, the Palo Altos, and so on. Those descendants quickly revert back to what Smith refers to as the basest savagery. They wear skins, and carry bows and slings. They're superstitious, have no concept of numbers, and are constantly interrupting and playing tricks on their grandfather as he tells his story.

Overall, I enjoyed it very much. It's only about 100 pages or so, and it does sort of drag towards the end as he describes who married who in which tribe, but it's a pillar of the genre, and so anyone who's a fan should read it at least once.

It's out of copyright, so is freely available in any format you could want. I did the Librivox audio book version, and the quality of the recording was great.

Grizzly bears around San Francisco`s derelict railways...nature is encroaching over the remains of american cities, while and old literature teacher discuss with his brutish grandsons, about what the world was like before the scarlet death exterminated most of human beings, and their civilization. In this rare Jack London`s short novel, a strange and unknown virus killed most of people on earth. Nobody ever discovered where it came from, or how to stop it, before it was too late.

This book is recommended for anyone interested in post-apocalyptical literature. In my opinion, Jack London`s classics, like white fang, and the call of the wild are better, but anyway, this is a very good book. I liked the different depictions about the last days of civilization, and the author`s prose. I mean, the way Jack London writes.

It`s main flaw, is that it lacks another story, beyond the narrator tale to his grandsons.