The Call of the Wild, White Fang, and Other Stories

The Call of the Wild, White Fang, and Other Stories

by Jack LondonKenneth K. Brandt and Kenneth K. Brandt
Epub (Kobo), Epub (Adobe)
Publication Date: 01/01/2000

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A bold mix of realism, allegory, adventure, and progressive politics, this collection features Jack London’s most profound and moving literary works


The Call of the Wild, London’s elemental masterpiece about a dog learning to survive in the wilderness, sees pampered pet Buck snatched from his home and set to work as a sled-dog during the Klondike Gold Rush. White Fang, set in the frozen tundra and boreal forests of Canada’s Yukon territory, is the story of a wolf-dog hybrid struggling to survive in a human society every bit as brutal as the natural world. This volume of London’s famed Northland novels also includes an early feminist story “The Night-Born,” and a pro-labor story “South of the Slot.” These works echo and enrich the themes of The Call of the Wild and White Fang with their unique emphases on the primordial, the instinctual, and the quest for social justice. London’s narratives in this volume focus on issues of continuing relevance to contemporary readers, including the value of the wilderness, animal rights, socioeconomic oppression, and gender inequity. This edition also includes an introduction by preeminent London scholar, Earle Labor, as well as a comprehensive biographical note on London's life and works by scholar and executive coordinator of the Jack London Society, Kenneth K. Brandt.


For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

ISBN:
9781101495643
9781101495643
Category:
Short stories
Format:
Epub (Kobo), Epub (Adobe)
Publication Date:
01-01-2000
Language:
English
Publisher:
Penguin Publishing Group
Jack London

Jack London (1876 - 1916), lived a life rather like one of his adventure stories. He was born John Chaney, the son of a travelling Irish-American fortune-teller and Flora Wellman, the outcast of a rich family. By the time Jack was a year old, Flora had married a grocer called John London and settled into a life of poverty in Pennsylvania. As Jack grew up he managed to escape from his grim surroundings into books borrowed from the local library - his reading was guided by the librarian.

At fifteen Jack left home and travelled around North America as a tramp - he was once sent to prison for thirty days on a charge of vagrancy. At nineteen he could drink and curse as well as any boatman in California! He never lost his love of reading and even returned to education and gained entry into the University of California. He soon moved on and in 1896 joined the gold rush to the Klondyke in north-west Canada. He returned without gold but with a story in his head that became a huge best-seller - The Call of the Wild - and by 1913 he was the highest -paid and most widely read writer in the world. He spent all his money on his friends, on drink and on building himself a castle-like house which was destroyed by fire before it was finished. Financial difficulties led to more pressure than he could cope with and in 1916, at the age of forty, Jack London committed suicide.

Titles such as The Call of the Wild, The Sea-Wolf and White Fang continue to excite readers today.

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