The Call of the Wild: Jack London (Classics, Adventure, Literature) [Annotated]

by Jack London

The Call of the Wild by Jack London was first published in 1903. It's an adventure novel that takes place during the Klondike Gold Rush in the 1890's when around 100,000 people moved to Yukon in Canada in search of gold. During this time, sled dogs were in high demand, and the main character of this book is in fact a St. Bernard–Scotch Collie mix dog called Buck. Stolen from his home at a ranch and sold as a sled dog, Buck must learn to become more primitive and figure out how to fight for survival among his new, harsh conditions. His new owners are cruel and mistreat Buck, but eventually he finds a new, kinder owner in John Thornton. His journey to become a completely feral dog is complete when Thornton dies and Buck fights to become part of a pack of wolves.

London had spent some time in Yukon, living in a frontier town for almost a year. Exploring themes such as nature versus nurture, The Call of the Wild is written in a way that was 'a protest against the 'humanizing' of animals', as London accused other writers of doing.This book has 53 pages and originally published in 1903.

113 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 4, 2024

About the author

John Griffith Chaney, better known as Jack London, was an American novelist, journalist and activist. A pioneer of commercial fiction and American magazines, he was one of the first American authors to become an international celebrity and earn a large fortune from writing. He was also an innovator in the genre that would later become known as science fiction.

London was part of the radical literary group "The Crowd" in San Francisco and a passionate advocate of animal rights, workers’ rights and socialism. London wrote several works dealing with these topics, such as his dystopian novel The Iron Heel, his non-fiction exposé The People of the Abyss, War of the Classes, and Before Adam.

His most famous works include The Call of the Wild and White Fang, both set in Alaska and the Yukon during the Klondike Gold Rush, as well as the short stories "To Build a Fire", "An Odyssey of the North", and "Love of Life". He also wrote about the South Pacific in stories such as "The Pearls of Parlay" and "The Heathen".