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Jack London

Nicholas Ruddick

The Call of the Wild Paperback – July 1, 1990

by Jack London (Author)

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This triumphant tale of survival follows the adventures of Buck, half-St. Bernard and half-Scottish sheepdog, who is forced into the brutal life of a sled-dog during the heady days of the Alaska gold rush.

The Call of the Wild, considered by many to be Jack London's greatest novel, is a gripping survival story of a heroic dog that, thrust into the brutal life of the Alaska Gold Rush, ultimately faces a choice between living in man's world and returning to nature. Adventure and animal-story enthusiasts as well as students and devotees of American literature will find this classic work a thrilling, memorable reading experience.

Jack London's novels and ruggedly individual life seemed to embody American hopes, frustrations, and romantic longings in the turbulent first years of the twentieth century, years infused with the wonder and excitement of great technological and historic change. The author's restless spirit, taste for a life of excitement, and probing mind led him on a series of hard-edged adventures from the Klondike to the South Seas. Out of these sometimes harrowing experiences — and his fascination with the theories of such thinkers as Darwin, Spencer, and Marx — came the inspiration for novels of adventure that would make him one of America’s most popular writers.

Stories of hardship amid the wilderness and on the open sea typify London's works.
White Fang, a companion work of literature to The Call of the Wild, is a classic animal adventure story about a hybrid wild wolf-dog's battle for survival and its transformation into domesticity.
The Sea-Wolf, a 1904 maritime classic hailed by critics as one of the greatest sea stories ever written, is an adventure story composed of the struggle for survival, personal discovery and growth.
Dover’s Thrift Editions offer a superlative collection of classic literature at exceptional value, with over 700 titles available by world-famous authors in fiction, nonfiction, plays, and poetry.

Reading age

10+ years, from customers
Print length

64 pages
Language

English
Lexile measure

1120L
Dimensions

5.23 x 0.25 x 8.27 inches
Publisher

Dover Publications
Publication date

July 1, 1990
ISBN-10

0486264726
ISBN-13

978-0486264721
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From the Publisher

husky sled dog alaska gold rush call of the wild

Follow the adventures of Buck - gripping tale of a heroic dog

The Call of the Wild, considered by many to be Jack London's greatest novel, is a gripping survival story of a heroic dog that, thrust into the brutal life of the Alaska Gold Rush, ultimately faces a choice between living in man's world and returning to nature. Adventure and animal-story enthusiasts as well as students and devotees of American literature will find this classic work a thrilling, memorable reading experience.

Stories of hardship amid the wilderness and on the open sea typify London's works.
White Fang, a companion work of literature to The Call of the Wild, is a classic animal adventure story about a hybrid wild wolf-dog's battle for survival and its transformation into domesticity.

jack london call of the wild cover husky wilderness klondike

Jack London's novels and ruggedly individual life seemed to embody American hopes, frustrations, and romantic longings in the turbulent first years of the twentieth century, years infused with the wonder and excitement of great technological and historic change. The author's restless spirit, taste for a life of excitement, and probing mind led him on a series of hard-edged adventures from the Klondike to the South Seas. Out of these sometimes harrowing experiences — and his fascination with the theories of such thinkers as Darwin, Spencer, and Marx — came the inspiration for novels of adventure that would make him one of America’s most popular writers.

Dover’s Thrift Editions offer a superlative collection of classic literature at exceptional value, with over 700 titles available by world-famous authors in fiction, nonfiction, plays, and poetry.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Novelist, journalist, and social activist Jack London (1876–1916) rose from abject poverty to international fame. The bestselling, highest-paid, and most popular author of his era, London created a substantial body of work in his short life, drawing upon his experiences as a cannery worker, sailor, railroad hobo, and prospector.

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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Dover Publications; 1st edition (July 1, 1990)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 64 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0486264726
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0486264721
Reading age ‏ : ‎ 12 years and up
Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 1120L
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.08 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.23 x 0.25 x 8.27 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #7,521 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #29 in Classic Action & Adventure (Books)
- #49 in Animal Fiction (Books)
- #77 in Children's Dog Books (Books)

Customer Reviews:
6,804 ratings

About the authors

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Jack London
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John Griffith "Jack" London (born John Griffith Chaney, January 12, 1876 – November 22, 1916) was an American novelist, journalist, and social activist. A pioneer in the then-burgeoning world of commercial magazine fiction, he was one of the first fiction writers to obtain worldwide celebrity and a large fortune from his fiction alone.
Some of his most famous works include The Call of the Wild and White Fang, both set in 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 of the South Pacific in such stories as "The Pearls of Parlay" and "The Heathen", and of the San Francisco Bay area in The Sea Wolf.
London was part of the radical literary group "The Crowd" in San Francisco and a passionate advocate of unionization, socialism, and the rights of workers. He wrote several powerful works dealing with these topics, such as his dystopian novel The Iron Heel, his non-fiction exposé The People of the Abyss, and The War of the Classes.
Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Photo by published by L C Page and Company Boston 1903 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
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Nicholas Ruddick
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Nicholas Ruddick was born in 1952 in Salford, near Manchester, England and moved to Canada in 1974. From 1982-2017 he taught at the University of Regina, where he is now an Emeritus Professor of English. He's known both as a science fiction critic and as an editor of scholarly editions of novels written near the turn of the twentieth century. He's married to the Swedish-Canadian novelist Britt Holmström.
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Customer reviews

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4 star		12%
3 star		6%
2 star		2%
1 star		4%

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BMom

Cheaply bound, hard-to-read copy

Reviewed in the United States on April 30, 2018

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Amazon seems to be lumping all different editions together in the reviews so it is impossible to know which edition you are reading about. Had it been clear that THIS printing was awful, i would not have purchased it. This has a brown cover with a picture of London on it. It was about $3. I received it today, and it is obviously a cheap home print job--thin, barely laminated cover, weird size (about 6x8"), very thin (entire book crammed into 45 pages). I bought it for first of three kids to read for school; this is not something I want to keep on my bookshelves for a while. It's a classic; I want a halfway decent copy. Child will continue to read it on free Kindle edition for now, and I'm ordering a new copy from a "known" publisher. Don't buy this one--

158 people found this helpful

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DNA

A dog's tale that is riveting

Reviewed in the United States on December 28, 2017

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Beautiful story of a dog, Buck, who is a St. Bernard from his father's side a sheep dog from his mother's. Throughout the story Buck proves that he is a dog like no other. His grit and tenacity see him sail through the worst treatment that can be wrought by man on animal. (Warning:If you have a pet or if you are an animal lover it might prove extremely challenging to sail through many parts of the book). Just when Buck finally finds a master who he dearly loves and is loved, he hears a call, the 'call of the wild'. He knows that he cannot ignore the call.
This is a slim volume, can perhaps be read in one sitting if you have some time. I had not imagined that such a book would keep me riveted, for it is not about mystery,suspense, adventure or action. It is about a dog! No wonder this is a classic.

Update (June 2019): After reading this book, I was keen on visiting the Jack London Square at Oakland,CA and I did. A thoroughly enjoyable place that does justice to this son of Oakland. Bronze statues of Mr. London and a dog along with plaques about his life present the visitor a nice peek into his life. Sadly he died relatively young, in his forties. A must see is the log cabin he is believed to have spent some time at while in Alaska. An enthusiastic admirer of his identified the cabin in a remote part of Alaska (based on accounts in his works I think), retrieved it and had it reconstructed!

(if you plan to read the book, feel free to skip the rest of this below)

The Alaska Gold Rush of late 19th century (1896 or so) attracted something like 100,000 prospectors, mostly from the San Francisco/Seattle areas to the Yukon region.Well cared, healthy, powerful dogs attracted unheard of premiums. This prompted a greedy gardener to kidnap his employer's dog and sell it off to work the sleds. While being transported from sunny Santa Clara Valley, Buck changes many cruel hands, however his last tormentor is particularly vile. He clubs Buck to pulp leaving him clinging to life. The experience infuses a steely character in Buck. While anything could break his body, nothing could break his spirit.Buck has to fight many competitors to finally establish supremacy of the pack.His masters recognize his remarkable character and reward him by according him the pride of place, to lead the pack. Demands of transportation make the dogs overworked, underfed and exploited, Buck included. He, like the rest of his pack is reduced to skin and bone. He is sold to ignorant but cruel masters who continue the exploitation, but Buck would have none of it. His greatness is recognized by a camper who adopts him and then begins Buck's wonderful life. He regains everything he had lost and seems even more virile and strong than the best of past times. Buck serves his master, even helping him add to his fortunes. When everything seems hunky dory, something tells Buck his place is in the wild. When the call of the wild is received it does not go unheeded.Meanwhile his master and associates are killed by native Indians.Trust Buck to take revenge and kill them all, establishing his superiority over even man himself. After this inflection point and after having lost his beloved master, Buck is even more convinced that his place is in the Wild and he returns to it, as if he had belonged there all the time.

53 people found this helpful

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Lisa Gott

After watching PBS’s Great American Read

Reviewed in the United States on July 14, 2018

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I had always heard about The Call of the Wild and intended to read it much sooner. After watching PBS’s Great American Read, I was reminded of all the classics I have yet to read (and those I need to revisit).

This was a hard one for me to rate and to review. There are so many different themes represented in the book: man and the natural world, competition, pride, suffering, respect, loyalty, friendship, perseverance, knowledge, and more!

The story is told from the point of view of a good and kind dog named Buck. Buck’s life takes some drastic and (devastating) turns. He experiences pain (both physical and emotional) from both humans and other animals. But he doesn’t give up. He fights. Becomes stronger. And in doing so, becomes more in tune with the “wild animal” inside of him. And this is where Buck’s story culminates, with his full devotion and acceptance of the wild parts of his being, and subsequent return to nature.

What exactly did London what the reader to glean from his writing? No one will ever really know except London himself, but in a lot of ways, I wondered if this wasn’t a clever way of telling the story of how all beings (even humans) can, if they are not careful, lose their grip on who they really are. How important it is to remain true to who we are deep inside. Our natural self. Not that we should venture off into the woods and live off the land, but rather we shouldn’t let the world around us shape us into a person we don’t feel comfortable (or happy) being.

The prose is fairly effortless to read compared to some classics, so this would be well suited even for fairly young readers. BEWARE: If you are at all triggered by animal cruelty and violence, you may want to skip this over.

Often the best and most lasting art leaves those who enjoy it with more questions than answers. This is surely one of those. A great pick for a book club discussion.

30 people found this helpful

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Ivo Pavlov

Wow! Don't waste your money

Reviewed in the United States on February 27, 2021

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This novel was crammed into 61 pages. Single spaced. It looks more like a pamphlet than a book.
And inside, looks like it was Google translated several times and nobody bothered to proof read it. Sentences don't make sense, wrong words are being used, etc. I posted a pic of the first page so you can see what to expect. I bought it for my 7th grader to read but it'll be going back and I'll go to a book store and buy a normal copy.
Amazon has come a long way from their book store origins and I don't mean that as a compliment!

4 people found this helpful

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Mary Langer Thompson

The Book is Always Better Than the Movie

Reviewed in the United States on March 3, 2020

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Great price on this Jack London unabridged edition that grabs the reader from line one: "Buck did not read the newspapers, or he would have known that trouble was brewing . . . " I bought several copies because I wanted to read it before the Harrison Ford remake of the movie came out. This book is a classic for a reason and that is good writing. The story is from Buck's perspective and that is difficult to not reduce it to a children's story. I'm sure this book is the reason that everybody knows or has owned a dog named "Buck." Now I need to read "White Fang." Members of the High Desert California Writers Club who considers Jack London one of their founders, went to see the movie together. The consensus: "The book is always better than the movie." The movie was "too Disneyesque." Read the book.

3 people found this helpful

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Pirie Reads

The Call of The Wild by Jack London

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 29, 2020

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An amazing adventure story about a dog called Buck. Buck goes through hell in this book as a man takes him from his home and sells him to become a sled dog. He is a tough one though and never gives up on life. He takes on every challenge with amazing spirit and strength.

As I read Buck's story I admired his never ending motivation to survive. Yet, I hated the brutality in the story and winced a fair few times at the tearing flesh and descriptions of death and injury. Some of the human characters are vile and callous. The sled dogs work hard for little reward or comfort. Buck made me feel grateful for my privileged life. He also showed me that the world is a tough place and you have got to fight to survive.

It's a short story and takes a couple of hours to read.

The Author Jack London wrote numerous other works throughout his life. I will definitely read more of his work. I will never forget the story of Buck. It's made a lasting impression.

6 people found this helpful

Martin Jones

Lessons in survival

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 3, 2017

Verified Purchase

This elemental story imagines a dog plucked from an indolent early life as a household pet, to become part of a sledge team working in the harsh world of the Yukon during the Klondike gold rush. Struggling to survive, the former domesticated animal begins to regress through past generations to its wolf forebears. The story itself makes a similar journey back into the history, taking the form of the archetypal myth of the hero, where a youngster leaves the comfort of home and heads into the unknown. Writers such as Christopher Vogler suggest that such a story evolved back in the early history of humanity, as a teaching tool to prepare the young to go out beyond the tribe's home territory into a hostile world. In both subject and form, The Call of the Wild reaches back to the time when dog and man first came together, when they were rather similar, hairy creatures struggling for survival. This makes sense of the humanisation of the dog, even though its animal character is closely observed.

I found The Call of the Wild immensely powerful and involving. By the end of it I actually felt bloodied and battered, as though I'd come through a formative experience. The Call of the Wild deserves its status as one of the best novels ever written.

15 people found this helpful

Wras

"Humans inhumanity is all too human."

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 27, 2015

Verified Purchase

"Humans inhumanity is all too human."
Buck a domesticated dog is stolen for use during the gold rush in the Yukon; use is not a word I use lightly here, enslaved would begin to describe it better. This is not a childrens book by any standard; the description of cruelty of humans towards animals is brutal and unrelenting, also the descriptions of the survival of the fittest is not restricted in any way, expect gore and cruelty in bucket loads.
This is a tale of adventure and survival, that takes you into a world where nature is king and master of men and animals, one mistake one miscalculation and your life is gone.
I finished this short book in one sitting and enjoyed the resilience of buck but found some of the violence a bit disturbing.

9 people found this helpful

AndiBee

Good story - difficult read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 12, 2020

Verified Purchase

I loved that the story is told from Buck's perspective, I loved that you can follow his ascent to his rightful place, I loved the descriptions of the humans and world around him (I'm from the UK and we have no places even remotely similar to Canada)! However, due to the period in which the book was written, the style and language made it terribly hard work! A lot of attention was needed to get from one paragraph to the next... Good job the tale held my attention as I COULD have put it down very early on otherwise!

2 people found this helpful

Kwev

Horrible version of this wonderful story

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 28, 2017

Verified Purchase

This is wonderful story, but this is a terrible book.
It isn't produced by a proper publisher. It is printed in tiny, tiny type - maybe 6 point. Looks like someone has knocked it up on their 1980's word-processer. I bought it for my 9 yr old daughter and it's useless. I am now ordering a proper version. Don't buy this version, you'll hate it.

14 people found this helpful

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Follow the adventures of Buck - gripping tale of a heroic dog

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