Novel
The Call of the Wild
Jack London · 1903
Synopsis
Autumn 1897: the Klondike gold rush draws men from all over the world towards the North. Buck, a large dog born of a Saint Bernard and a Scotch shepherd bitch, rules over Judge Miller's estate in the Santa Clara Valley. Manuel, a gardener's helper ruined by gambling, steals him and sells him. Shut in a crate, beaten with a club, he is bought by two couriers of the Canadian government, lands at Dyea and learns the law of club and fang. Harnessed to the courier's sled, he must reckon with Spitz, the lead dog, who defends his place.
Context
The author's stay in the Klondike, from October 1897 to the spring of 1898, brought him almost nothing, and scurvy drove him out. The story, planned at four thousand words, ran to thirty-two thousand; it appeared in five instalments in the Saturday Evening Post, from 20 June to 18 July 1903, paid at seven hundred and fifty dollars, then in volume form from Macmillan the same year, and made its author's name at a stroke. Three years later, London wrote the inverse counterpart, the story of a wolf who becomes tame.
Who it is for
A short novel, told from an animal's point of view, often published for young readers despite cruel and very violent scenes.
Prizes and reception
A first printing of ten thousand copies quickly sold out, and its author was assured a place among the American classics.
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