LOVE OF LIFE and Other Stories

1907. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1907. 4 pp undated ads. Original dark blue cloth decorated in gilt and cream.

First Edition, consisting of 7,973 copies, of this collection of eight tales. He needed the money badly, for he had overspent his income to satisfy his various desires. As well as paying for his ranch and his growing number of dependents, he was beginning to squander a fortune on building a boat called the "Snark" for his seven years' voyage... He returned to panning out a living from Alaska in the stories collected in a volume with "Love of Life." His confidence in his own tenacity was shown in that extraordinary story of man's will to survive at all costs. Yet the instability of his long sickness also appeared in "The Sun-Dog Trail." In that underestimated story of a man and woman bent on vengeance against another man, the reason for action is hidden, and the white silence of the north is as ambiguous as it is murderous... Reality and appearance, willpower and dream, are all confused in a last reckoning. [Sinclair] As always, the title leaf is a cancel. This is a bright copy, near-fine with minor wear at the extremities. Sisson & Martens p. 36; Blanck 11904.