The Iron Heel

1907 London, Jack [John Griffith] (1876-1916). The Iron Heel. New York: Macmillan. Rpt. New York: The Regent Press, [1913]; New York: Sagamore Press, 1957; London: Arco, 1966; London: Journeyman Press, 1974; Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, [1980], with an introduction by H. Bruce Franklin (i-vi);  Edinburgh, Scot.: Rebel, Inc., 1999; ed. Jonathan Auerbach. New York: Penguin Books, 2006; and in his Novels and Social Writings Ed. Donald Pizer (New York: Library of America, 1982), 315-553, with a “Note on the Text” (1172) and “Notes” (1183-89). “The Iron Heel Chapter 23” was rpt. in The Radical Jack London: Writings on War and Revolution. Ed. Jonah Raskin (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2008), 192-206. Most sources give 1908 as the date of publication, but the copy at the British Library is clearly dated 1907 on both the title and copyright pages. This is considered to be a copy filed for copyright with the first published edition being 1908. L, PSt

Primarily an anti-capitalist dystopia stressing the struggle against capitalism and the defeat of the revolution. The text, which is written as an account of the struggle by a participant, is accompanied by a “Foreword” and footnotes purporting to have been written seven centuries in the future in 419 B.O.M. (Brotherhood of Man) when a eutopia had finally been established. See also 1908 London “A Curious Fragment”, 1908 London “Goliah”, and 1909 London.