HEARTS OF THREE by London, Jack - 1920

1920. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1920. Original maroon cloth. First American Edition, which consisted of only 4,990 copies. HEARTS OF THREE was published four years after London's death (and two years after it was published in England). Like his two late books about dogs, this was hackwork necessary to raise cash, which he wrote in Hawaii during his final year... The last long novel of his life, HEARTS OF THREE, was a sorry business, a piece of romantic trash that bore no mark of Jack's style at all. It was the first time he had been asked to "novelize" a screenplay. In fact, HEARTS OF THREE was a serial adventure story of fifteen episodes, written by the screen­writer of "The Perils of Pauline" and "The Exploits of Elaine." To ask an author of Jack's quality to flesh it out was an insult and an indignity. He wrote it because the Hearst Sunday supplements bribed him with $25,000 over and above his regular contract with Cosmopolitan... He thought the book would have a large sale; it was so badly done that in fact it failed. [Sinclair] "Romantic trash" or not, it is a Jack London title, and a none-too-common one at that. This is a remarkably bright copy, fine except for the slightest of wear at the spine tips. Quite uncommon thus. Sisson & Martens p. 104; Blanck 11982.