The classic story of a remarkable dog. Buck, lives a comfortable life as top dog at the home of the Judge. Son of a handsome St Bernard, Buck too is handsome, intelligent and totally trusted by the household. But everything changes when Buck is stolen from his life of luxury and forced into the harsh labour of a sledge dog in the heart of the icy Yukon Territory. How Buck survives his savage ordeal and responds to the pull of life as a dog living in the wild is a powerful story of the reality of nature which can only partially be trained out of the dog.
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Jack London's The Call of the Wild is a novella taking place during the Klondike Gold Rush in the Yukon a place where strong sled dogs were in high demand. After Buck, a domesticated dog, is snatched from a ranch in California, he is sold into a brutal life as a sled dog. The Call of the Wild details Buck's struggle to adjust and survive the cruel treatment he receives from humans, other dogs, and nature. He eventually sheds the veneer of civilization altogether and relies on primordial instincts and the lessons he has learned to become a respected and feared leader in the wild. The Call of the Wild is London's most popular work and is considered the masterpiece of his "early period." It is often classified as children's literature because of its animal protagonist, but the subject matter makes it valuable for older audiences as well dealing with such subjects as survival of the fittest, civilization versus nature, and fate versus free will
John Griffith Chaney — aka Jack London, whose life symbolized the power of will, was the most successful writer in America in the early 20th Century. His vigorous stories of men and animals against the environment, and survival against hardships were drawn mainly from his own experience. An illegitimate child, London passed his childhood in poverty in the Oakland slums. At the age of 17, he ventured to sea on a sealing ship. The turning point of his life was a thirty-day imprisonment that was so degrading it made him decide to turn to education and pursue a career in writing. His years in the Klondike searching for gold left their mark in his best short stories; among them, The Call of the Wild, and White Fang. His best novel, The Sea-Wolf, was based on his experiences at sea. His work embraced the concepts of unconfined individualism and Darwinism in its exploration of the laws of nature. He retired to his ranch near Sonoma, where he died at age 40 of various diseases and drug treatments.
