The Scarlet Plague: A Quick Read edition

Discover a new way to read classics with Quick Read.
This Quick Read edition includes both the full text and a summary for each chapter.
- Reading time of the complete text: about 2 hours
- Reading time of the summarized text: 4 minutes

"The Scarlet Plague" is a post-apocalyptic novel by Jack London, published in 1912. The story takes place in 2073, sixty years after a deadly epidemic called the Red Death has wiped out most of the world's population. The protagonist, James Smith, is one of the few survivors and travels with his grandsons, who live as hunter-gatherers in a depopulated world. Smith recounts his life before the plague, when he was an English professor, and how the disease spread rapidly, killing victims within 30 minutes of first seeing symptoms. Despite the public's trust in doctors and scientists, no cure was found. Smith witnesses the first victim of the scarlet plague while teaching, and soon after, an epidemic overtakes the area, causing residents to riot and kill each other. Smith's entire party dies out, leaving him as the sole survivor. He lives for three years on his own before discovering a new society created by a few survivors who have broken into tribes. The Scarlet Plague was published in book form in 1915 by Macmillan and was later reprinted in the February 1949 issue of Famous Fantastic Mysteries. The novel falls into a genre of apocalyptic fiction featuring a universal plague that nearly wipes out humanity, similar to other works such as Mary Shelley's The Last Man and Stephen King's The Stand.