Spell of the Yukon

A nice edition with 18 photographs and the cover from the 1915 edition.

The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses, also known as Songs of a Sourdough, is a book of poetry published in 1907 by Robert Service. The book is well known for its verse about the Klondike Gold Rush in the Yukon a decade earlier, particularly the long, humorous ballads, "The Shooting of Dan McGrew" and "The Cremation of Sam McGee." Service was posted to Whitehorse, Yukon, in 1904. Out on a walk one Saturday night, Service heard the sounds of revelry coming from a saloon, and the phrase "A bunch of the boys were whooping it up" popped into his head. Inspired, he ran to the bank to write it down, and by the next morning "The Shooting of Dan McGrew" was complete. A month or so later he heard a gold rush yarn from a Dawson mining man about a fellow who cremated his pal. He spent the night walking in the woods composing "The Cremation of Sam McGee," and wrote it down from memory the next day. The book also contains other classic poems like "The Land God Forgot", "The Spell of the Yukon", and "The Men That Don't Fit In".