The Call Of The Wild Complete With Original Illustrations

Author : Jack London
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 108 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (249 download)

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Download or read book The Call of the Wild : Complete with Original Illustrations written by Jack London and published by . This book was released on 2020-03-14 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Call of the Wild is a short adventure novel by Jack London, published in 1903 and set in Yukon, Canada, during the 1890s Klondike Gold Rush, when strong sled dogs were in high demand. The central character of the novel is a dog named Buck. The story opens at a ranch in Santa Clara Valley, California, when Buck is stolen from his home and sold into service as a sled dog in Alaska. He becomes progressively feral in the harsh environment, where he is forced to fight to survive and dominate other dogs. By the end, he sheds the veneer of civilization, and relies on primordial instinct and learned experience to emerge as a leader in the wild.London spent almost a year in the Yukon, and his observations form much of the material for the book. The story was serialized in The Saturday Evening Post in the summer of 1903 and was published later that year in book form. The book's great popularity and success made a reputation for London. As early as 1923, the story was adapted to film, and it has since seen several more cinematic adaptations.The story opens in 1897 with Buck, a powerful 140-pound St. Bernard-Scotch Collie mix,[1][2] happily living in California's Santa Clara Valley as the pampered pet of Judge Miller and his family. When the judge is out of town, assistant gardener Manuel, needing money to pay off gambling debts, steals Buck and sells him to a stranger. Buck is shipped to Seattle where, confined in a crate, is starved and ill-treated. When released, Buck attacks his handler, the "man in the red sweater," who teaches Buck the "law of the club," sufficiently cowing him. The man shows some kindness after Buck stops attacking. Shortly after, Buck is sold to two French-Canadian dispatchers from the Canadian government, François and Perrault, who take him to Alaska. Buck is trained as a sled dog for the Klondike region of Canada. Buck's teammates teach him how to survive cold winter nights and about pack society. A rivalry develops between Buck and the lead dog, Spitz, a vicious and quarrelsome white husky. Buck eventually kills Spitz in a fight and becomes the lead dog.When François and Perrault complete the round-trip of the Yukon Trail in record time--returning to Skagway with their dispatches, they are given new orders from the Canadian government. They sell their sled team to a "Scotch half-breed" man, who works in the mail service. The dogs must make long, tiring trips, carrying heavy loads to the mining areas. While running the trail, Buck seems to have memories of a canine ancestor who has a short-legged "hairy man" companion. Meanwhile, the weary animals become weak, and the wheel dog, Dave, a morose husky, becomes terminally sick and is eventually shot.With too few dogs to continue, the mail-carrier sells the remaining three, including Buck, to three stampeders from the American Southland (present-day contiguous United States)--a vain woman named Mercedes, her sheepish husband, Charles, and her arrogant brother, Hal. They lack survival skills for the Northern wilderness and struggle to control the sled. The trio ignore others' helpful advice--particularly warnings about the dangerous spring melt. When told her sled is too heavy, Mercedes dumps out crucial supplies in favor of fashion objects. They foolishly create a team of 14 dogs, believing they will travel faster. The dogs are overfed and over-worked, then are starved when food runs low. Most dogs die, leaving only five when they pull into White River.