The Unparalleled Invasion

Jack London’s short story ‘The Unparalled Invasion’, which first appeared in 1910, is now seen as a classic ‘Yellow Peril’ text about a genocidal clash of civilizations in which the Chinese race is eventually obliterated from the face of the Earth. However, despite the story’s origins in London’s once-condescending attitudes to Asian races, the story appeared at a time when his regrettable racism of the past was firmly behind him. The inevitable discomfort ‘The Unparalled Invasion’ still causes means that the story and its circumstances deserve further examination if it is to be understood correctly, and Peter Young’s Afterword, original to this edition, provides the necessary context for the story and how it can be best read.