Best of Robert Service

Book excerpt: Here, collected in a single volume, are the most popular verses of the great English-born Canadian poet. His famous ballads of the Klondike are here: “The Shooting of Dan McGrew,” “The Spell of the Yukon,” and “The Cremation of Sam McGee.” Also included are unforgettable portrayals of the artists, grisettes, and models of the merry, tragic life of bohemian Paris, and other verses inspire by the First World War, during which Service drove an ambulance in France. And not to be overlooked are the many expressions of the poet’s own homespun philosophy—his comments on women, on life and death, ambition, and success and failure, which strike a responsive chord in the reader’s heart. Gaiety, humor, nostalgia, and pathos fill every page, along with the genuine Service ring of virility which has made his verse loved throughout the English reading world.