The Call of the Wild [FIRST APPEARANCE as serialized in The Saturday Evening Post.]

by London, Jack

First printing

Price: $2,850.00
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Philadelphia: The Curtis Publishing Company (in The Saturday Evening Post), June / July, 1903 (5 installments-complete serialization). First printing . Original Wrappers. Near Fine. Charles Livingston Bull. The Call of the Wild is the greatest dog story ever written and is at the same time a study of one of the most curious and profound motives that play hide-and-seek in the human soul." -Carl SandburgTHIS BOOK IS ELIGIBLE FOR A DISCOUNT OF UP TO 20% OFF THE PRICE SHOWN IN THIS LISTING FOR ORDERS PLACED ON OR BEFORE DECEMBER 31, 2009. (Not available in combination with any other discounts.) This is the scarce complete FIRST APPEARANCE OF JACK LONDON'S MASTERPIECE, serialized in The Saturday Evening Post. This publication of the story preceded the first edition published in book form by MacMillan. On January 26, 1903, London submitted his completed manuscript of The Call of the Wild to The Saturday Evening Post. The Post's editor agreed to purchase the story provided that London decrease its length by five thousand words. The Post paid London three cents a word (a price set by him) for a total price of $750. Later in the same month, Macmillan purchased the book rights to the story for $2,000. Thus, the story was sold for a total of $2,750, a low price given the ultimate success of the tale: "The book was a passport to instant world acclaim. It not only became a classic, but it also opened a new era of literature. Mush was out, and courageous, raw red-blooded life was in. The Call of the Wild proved that realism was what the new generation wanted... The book has never been out of print during the last one hundred years, and critics still rave about it". (Kingman, A Pictorial Life of Jack London) This first publication of the epic tale is illustrated by Charles Livingston Bull and Philip R. Godwin and is Complete in five original wrappered issues of The Saturday Evening Post: 20 June; June 27; July 4; and July 18, 1903. Each issue was at one time folded at the center. There are a few closed marginal tears, only one of which (at the center fold) invades the text, but not the text of the story. There is the expected intermittent shall chip and foxing as well as a thumb-size stain to the lower front corner of the pages of the last issue and a bit of scuffing to the edge of the July 11 cover illustration. However, uncommonly, there are no mailing labels to the front of any of these issues. (Many, if not most, issues will have a mailing label, regretably affixed to the front cover, often within, and thus marring, the cover illustration--This copy has none of these. We found no writting or underlining in any of these issues. All in all, this is a well-preserved set of the FIRST PUBLICATION of an important London work.

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