Synopses & Reviews
When gold was discovered in the Yukon in 1896, Jack London caught the fever and rushed off to the northlands to try his luck. When he returned home, he had not mined an ounce of gold but brought back a greater treasure -- vivid recollections of rugged life in the frozen wastelands. London converted his experiences into exciting adventure tales, including The Call of the Wild, which has been called his masterpiece. It tells the story of the magnificent dog Buck, who is a loyal pet until cruel men make him a pawn in their search for the gold of the Klondike. Brutally treated, Buck finds the blood of his wolf ancestors rising within him and breaks free to roam the Alaskan wilderness as leader of a ferocious pack.
About the Author
Jack London is best known for his books
The Call of the Wild, White Fang, and
The Sea-Wolf, but he was an incredibly prolific writer who left behind more than fifty volumes of novels, stories, journalism, and essays, many of which are still read around the world. Born in San Francisco in 1876 and named John, he adopted the name Jack during an adolescence spent working various hard-labor jobs, and later decided to become a writer in order to escape the fate of life as a factory worker. A summer spent in the Yukon in his twenties provided ample material to launch a career that would see him manipulate the media and embrace the writer persona as few before him had. The first full-length feature film made in America was based on
The Sea-Wolf, and London would live to see several of his works adapted for the big screen.
A committed if conflicted socialist, he possessed a strong desire for capitalist success (he endorsed commercial products in advertisements), but would use the platform his fame afforded him to endorse socialism, women's suffrage, and prohibition, and to break the taboo of leprosy. Somewhat ironically, a posthumous myth that London was a womanizing alcoholic who took his own life (despite his actual death of renal failure in 1916) would diminish the weight granted his body of work in the annals of literary and social history.
Table of Contents
Contents INTRODUCTION
BÂTARD
THE CALL OF THE WILD 1. Into the Primitive
2. The Law of Club and Fang
3. The Dominant Primordial Beast
4. Who Has Won to Mastership
5. The Toil of Trace and Trail
6. For the Love of a Man
7. The Sounding of the Call
BIOGRAPHICAL BACKGROUND
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
LITERARY ALLUSIONS AND NOTES
CRITICAL EXCERPTS
SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING