Smoke Bellew was published in book form in 1912. It takes us to the sub-zero temperatures of the Klondike during the Alaskan gold-rush days of 1897 in more London scribed adventures supporting his belief in Darwin's theory: Survival of the Fittest. His hero is Smoke Bellew, nee Christopher, who—much like London's intellectual but physically soft character Humphrey van Weyden from his 1909 "Sea Wolf" novel—has to overcome huge challenges to stand on his feet and become a man to be reckoned with. His adversaries include ruthless prospectors, cheating gamblers, savage Indians, and Mother Nature at her unforgiving worst. On his side is fellow prospector Shorty, a precursor of Gabby Hayes.

John Griffith "Jack" London (January 12, 1876 – November 22, 1916) was an American author, journalist, and social activist. He was a pioneer in the then-burgeoning world of commercial magazine fiction and 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.