London Jack.Smoke Bellew = Smoke Bellew.Germany, 1948

Jack London = Jack London. Smoke Bellew = Smoke Bellew.

Germany: Dnipro Publishing House, 1948. — 116 p. — (Library of Foreign Literature). — 16.5 × 12 cm.

Softcover: on the front cover, a color illustration — gold seekers on the rocky bank of a turbulent mountain river, the author's surname in pink, the title in yellow on a blue background; on the back, the publisher's emblem — an arch with the sun over a river. The spine is covered with a light blue fabric tape; along the spine on the front cover, the paper has peeled off in places. The cover is worn, the edges and corners are battered, there is a small tear in the paper at the top right, reddish-brown stains at the bottom on the front cover; on the back, brown stains at the bottom right, dark spots in the upper left corner, and pencil numbers at the top. The block paper is coarse, with dark inclusions, uniformly darkened to brown, especially along the edges; the edges of the sheets are uneven, there is a light stain on p. 80. The text is fully legible. Condition: good.

Collectible interest as a specimen of post-war Ukrainian printing in Germany.

INFORMATION

"Smoke Bellew" is Jack London's Klondike cycle about the gold rush, which was published in Ukrainian in Germany in 1948 for readers in exile. The hero, whom his friends in San Francisco knew as Kit Bellew, becomes Smoke in the North; beside him is his partner Shorty, and the action takes place in Dawson, on the snowy trails and in the pursuit of gold-bearing areas. This volume contains six stories: "The Bear's Taste", "The Bear's", "The March to Squaw Creek", "Shorty Sleeps", "The Man from the Other Side", and "The Race for a Single Claim". The complete cycle contains twelve stories, so the Ukrainian volume covers its first half. The stories of the cycle appeared in 1911–1912, and the cycle was published as a separate book in 1912.

Jack London (1876–1916) — an American writer, a native of San Francisco, author of "The Call of the Wild", "White Fang", and "Martin Eden". In Ukraine, he was translated more often than any other foreign writer: about 120 separate Ukrainian editions are known. Back in 1927, the Kyiv publishing house "Siaivo" published "Smoke and Shorty" in Maria Lysichenko's translation in a series of the same name — "Library of Foreign Literature".

The book was published by the Dnipro Publishing House, which, according to its own information, published the "Library of Foreign Literature", had a "Miscellaneous Publications" department, and accepted printing orders; the goal of the publishing house was to introduce Ukrainians abroad to world literature. On the title page, instead of a city, only "Germany" is listed. Bibliographies state the volume as 116 p.; a copy is kept in the library of the Shevchenko Scientific Society in America.