The Scarlet Plague, written by Jack London and published in 1912, is a post-apocalyptic science fiction novel set in the year 2073. The story centers on Professor James Howard Smith, one of the few survivors of a devastating pandemic that swept the world in 2013, killing nearly all of humanity within days through a flesh-destroying disease. As the elderly professor wanders a desolate landscape that was once San Francisco, he recounts the horror of the plague's onset and the collapse of civilization to his young grandsons, who know nothing of the world before. The novel explores themes of societal decay, human regression to savagery, and the fragility of modern civilization.
