The year is 2073, sixty years after a devastating global pandemic known as the Scarlet Plague has wiped out most of earth's population. James Smith is one of the few survivors, living in the ruins of what was once San Francisco. He tells his grandsons of what life was like before the plague, when advanced technology and complex societies flourished.But civilization was unable to defend itself against the rapid spread of the airborne Scarlet Plague. Within days, millions were dead. Those spared eventually resorted to primitive, survivalist behavior as global infrastructure collapsed.Sixty years later, Smith and his family struggle for subsistence, haunted by fading memories of the once great world they lost. And now, the signs of a second outbreak are looming. The Scarlet Plague, Jack London's 1912 post-pandemic vision, dramatizes both the fragility and the tenacity of human society in the face of biological devastation-perhaps a warning of what could actually come to pass.Newly designed and typeset, printed on archival-quality, acid-free paper