Home The Call of the Wild (American Classics Edition) by Jack London (ISBN: 9781674182230)

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The Call of the Wild (American Classics Edition) Paperback -

Name: The Call of the Wild (American Classics Edition)
Price: 4.00 USD
Availability: InStock
Author: London, Jack
ISBN: 9781674182230

by Jack London

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About this book

Jack London’s The Call of the Wild is an anthropomorphic canine’s unforgettable tale of survival. Set during the 1890s Klondike Gold Rush, the novel’s main character, Buck, a large and powerful St. Bernard-Scotch Shepherd, is stolen from his ranch home in Santa Clara Valley, California, and sold into service as a sled dog. At first, Buck experiences violence and struggles for survival, becoming progressively feral in the harsh environment. By the end, Buck relies on his instinct and learned experience to emerge as the proven leader of the pack.

In The Call of the Wild, author Jack London blends his experience as a gold prospector in the Canadian wilderness with his ideas about nature and the struggle for existence, influenced by the work of Darwin and Nietzsche. Thus, although the novel is first and foremost a story about a dog, it displays a philosophical depth absent in most animal adventures.

In the summer of 1903, the story was first serialized in four installments in The Saturday Evening Post, which paid $750 for it. Soon after, London sold all rights to The Call of the Wild to Macmillan, which published the story in book format in August of that same year. As the first printing of 10,000 copies sold out immediately, it is safe to say the novel was enormously popular from the moment it was published. It has since secured its place in the canon of American literature. Today, The Call of the Wild is still one of the best-known stories written by an American author and has been published in almost 50 languages. The Call of the Wild is ranked 35th on The Guardian’s list of the 100 best novels and 88th on Modern Library’s “100 Best” English-language novels of the 20th century.

From the publisher

The Call of the Wild is a classic adventure story set in Yukon, Canada in the late 19th Century. It is told from the point of view of the main character, a dog named Buck, who lives as the pampered pet of a California judge until he is stolen and sold to become a sled dog.The story chronicles Buck's various owners, each of which teach him lessons of survival, eventually leading him to his ultimate destiny. This book is the subject of a full length motion picture coming out in February of 2020, starring Harrison Ford.Jack London is best known for The Call of the Wild and White Fang, both of which center on the Klondike Gold Rush. In addition to being an American novelist, he was one of the first writers to see a level of fame and fortune from his writing and was also a well known social activist and pioneer in what would eventually become known as science fiction.

First Edition Identification

Macmillan first published The Call of the Wild in August 1903. Produced in a print run of 10,000 copies, first editions state "Set up electrotyped, and published July, 1903" on the copyright page and contain 10 tipped-in color plates by illustrators Philip R. Goodwin and Charles Livingston Bull as well as a color frontispiece by Charles Edward Hooper. The first printing of The Call of the Wild sold for $1.50. Nowadays, signed copies have sold for upwards of $20,000.