To Build a Fire

Oriiginally published in 1908, "To Build a Fire" is a classic short story by American author Jack London. In it, an unnamed protagonist ventures out in the subzero boreal forest of the Yukon Territory, accompanied by his dog, to visit friends-ignoring warnings from an older man about the dangers of hiking alone. The protagonist underestimates the harsh conditions and slowly begins to freeze to death.

John Griffith "Jack" London (1876 - 1916) was an American novelist, journalist and social activist. A pioneer in the then-burgeoning world of commercial magazine fiction, he was one of the first fiction writers to obtain worldwide celebrity and a large fortune from his fiction alone. Some of his most famous works include The Call of the Wild and White Fang, both set in the Klondike Gold Rush, as well as the short stories "To Build a Fire", "An Odyssey of the North" and "Love of Life". He also wrote of the South Pacific in such stories as "The Pearls of Parlay" and "The Heathen" and of the San Francisco Bay area in The Sea Wolf.