The Call of the Wild and White Fang

Timeless tales of wolves, dogs, men, and the Wild, The Call of the Wild and White Fang are two of the world's greatest adventure stories.

The biting cold and the aching silence of the far North become an unforgettable backdrop for Jack London's vivid, rousing, superbly realistic wilderness classics. The Call of the Wild features a gentle domestic dog driven by the cruelty of man to abandon civilization and return to the wilderness. By contrast, White Fang tells the story of a magnificent wolf dog born wild and free who struggles to survive and is transformed from a ferocious beast to a "blessed wolf," capable of great, uncompromising love. Each novel is filled with action and suspense. But what makes The Call of the Wild and White Fang two masterpieces of American literature is Jack London's special knowledge of the Yukon and of the behavior of humans facing nature at its cruelest, the fascinating lore of the wolf pack, and the ways of the Wild itself.

With an Introduction by John Seelye
And an Afterword by Michael Meyer

Jack London (1876-1916) spent his youth on the waters of San Francisco Bay. In 1897, when gold was discovered in the Klondike, he obtained a grubstake and spent a freezing, fruitless winter in the Far North; by spring he was ready to return home to write. In 1900, his collection of short stories The Son of the Wolf was published. Two more volumes of Yukon short stories, a juvenile novel, and a Klondike novel followed in rapid succession. Then came his bestselling novel The Call of the Wild (1903) and the beginning of the years that were to bring him wealth and worldwide popularity. The eternal traveler, London served as a correspondent in Japan and Mexico and sailed his own ketch to the Solomon Islands before his death.

John Seelye is a leading American Studies scholar and Graduate Research Professor of American literature at the University of Florida at Gainesville. He is the author of a number of books, including The True Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Prophetic Waters: The River in Early American Life.

Michael Meyer, Ph.D., is professor of English at the University of Connecticut. Among his books, Several More Lives to Live: Thoreau’s Political Reputation in America was awarded the Ralph Henry Gabriel Prize by the American Studies Association. In addition to The Bedford Introduction to Literature, his edited volumes include FrederickDouglass: The Narrative and Selected Writings.