Written during the Mexican Revolution, while London was in El Paso, Texas, "The Mexican" was first published in the Saturday Evening Post. In 1913 it was republished by Grosset &amp; Dunlap in the collection of short stories "The Night Born". The protagonist is based on the real-life "Joe Rivers," the pseudonym of a Mexican revolutionary whose boxing winnings supported the "Junta Revolucionaria Mexicana", a group of revolutionaries-in-exile. Joe Rivers eventually retired from boxing and became an ice delivery person in El Paso.