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The Call of the Wild and White Fang (Unabridged Classics)
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Product Description
Scott created these drawings in scratchboard an engraving medium which evokes the look of popular art from the period of these stories. Scratchboard is an illustration board with a specifically prepared surface of hard white chalk. A thin layer of black ink is rolled over the surface, and lines are drawn by hand with a sharp knife by scraping through the ink layer to expose the white surface underneath. The finished drawings are then scanned and the color is added digitally.
Two of Jack London’s best-loved masterpieces, in their entirety. Call of the Wild tells a compelling tale of adventure during the Yukon Gold Rush, and fully captures the unquenchable spirit of Buck, a kidnapped dog trying to survive in the harshest of environments. Also set in Alaska, the powerful White Fang follows the often savage life of the magnificent title character, a mix of wolf and dog.
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #179172 in Books
- Published on: 2004-10-01
- Format: Unabridged
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Binding: Hardcover
- 312 pages
Features
- ISBN13: 9781402714559
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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Editorial Reviews
From the Publisher
The Call Of The Wild is the story of Buck, a dog stolen from his home and thrust into the merciless life of the Arctic north to endure hardship, bitter cold, and the savage lawlessness of man and beast. White Fang is the adventure of an animal -- part dog, part wolf --turned vicious by cruel abuse, then transformed by the patience and affection of one man.
Jack London's superb ability as a storyteller and his uncanny understanding of animal and human natures give these tales a striking vitality and power, and have earned him a reputation as a distinguished American writer.
From the Inside Flap
The Call Of The Wild is the story of Buck, a dog stolen from his home and thrust into the merciless life of the Arctic north to endure hardship, bitter cold, and the savage lawlessness of man and beast. White Fang is the adventure of an animal -- part dog, part wolf --turned vicious by cruel abuse, then transformed by the patience and affection of one man.
Jack London's superb ability as a storyteller and his uncanny understanding of animal and human natures give these tales a striking vitality and power, and have earned him a reputation as a distinguished American writer.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
By the time London boarded the steamer for his trip from San Francisco to Alaska, he had already led a colorful and dramatic life. He was a sloop owner and oyster poacher on San Francisco Bay and a deputy for the Fish Patrol at fifteen, a sailor traveling through the North and South Pacific hunting seals at seventeen, a coal-shoveler in a power plant, a Socialist, and a tramp at eighteen. By nineteen, a weary London saw himself, with others of the working classes, near "the bottom of the [Social] Pit . . . myself above them, not far, and hanging on to the slippery wall by main strength and sweat" (London, War of the Classes, pp. 274-275; see "For Further Reading"). Although London was far from relinquishing his love of the active life, he feared being ruled by it. London fought in these early years to educate himself, and by that education to get himself out of the hard-laboring classes. As his hero informs his readers in the semi-autobiographical novel Martin Eden, writing offered a way to stoke the fires of both the body and the imagination, and so with characteristic determination, London set himself to the task of becoming a professional writer. By 1896, however, he realized that writing alone could not support a hungry family. The following year, London and his brother-in-law Captain James H. Shepard decided to try their luck panning for gold in the recently discovered strikes along the Yukon River in the Klondike.
After disembarking in Juneau, Alaska, London, Shepard and their companions made their way to Dyea, the principle departure point for the gold fields of the Yukon and the Klondike. Buck travels the same trails that London covered-leaving Dyea, making the arduous climb over Chilcoot Pass, and pushing on to Lakes Linderman and Bennett before making the waters of the Yukon River. From here, the party traveled downstream, toward Dawson City, where they navigated the dangerous White Horse and Five Finger Rapids before reaching the relative safety of Split-Up Island, 80 miles from Dawson between the Stewart River and Henderson Creek. London staked a claim near here and made a brief visit to Dawson City to record the claim. He returned to the island, where the group passed the winter in an old miner's cabin. These long five months proved difficult for London, who contracted scurvy by the spring from poor diet and lack of exercise.
Upon his return to San Francisco in 1898, London began his writing career in earnest. Clearly, the Klondike turned London into a writer of note, not only because he was able to tap into a ready market for all things Gold Rush, but more important, because the landscape offered London a barren theater for his characters to work out their paths in life. If, as London believed, environment determined the course of an individual's life, then the austere and brutal, yet ultimately simple environment of the North tested the capacities of the individual (and by extension, the species) to adapt to the environment.
London's intellectual experiences during the winter spent on Split-Up Island are as important as his physical ones; he spent his time reading, rereading, and sharing with his friends the two books he carried with him to the wilderness: Milton's Paradise Lost and Darwin's On the Origin of Species. Less than a year after his return to San Francisco, London summed up his understanding of Darwin in a letter to his friend Cloudesley Johns: "Natural selection, undeviating, pitiless, careless alike of the individual or the species, destroyed or allowed to perpetuate, as the case might be, such breeds as were unfittest or fittest to survive" (Labor, p. 101). Such struggle characterizes human and animal life in The Call of the Wild and White Fang.
Customer Reviews
When the way of the wild was a fact of life
Written almost of century ago by Jack London, both of these stories have truly stood the test of time. Both of them are based on London's experience in the Yukon, and both are written from the point of view of dogs.
In "The Call of the Wild", the dog Buck is kidnapped from an easy life and sold to a sled team during the Klondike Gold Rush. In spite of the numerous cruelties inflicted on him, Buck learns to survive. Eventually, he returns to the wild and to run with the wolves.
In "White Fang", the story is reversed. White Fang is three-quarters wolf and was born in the wild. Through a series of events, he is domesticated and eventually becomes a tame and loving pet.
There is much to learn in both of these stories. One thing is the way of animals and their life in the wild. Another is of the way of life in the Yukon. And of the men, both brutal and kind, who rely on the dogs to pull the sleds.
Jack London used his words well. There's an elegant cadence and a vigorous spirit. His love for the animals comes through as well as his respect for the wild forces of nature. And the theme that life changes are really possible because of environmental forces.
London didn't set out to write a story about the glorification of nature or vanishing wildlife. Indeed, during his short lifetime (1876-1916) the way of the wild was a fact of life. London just simply wrote his stories. And through his words, left a legacy of work that will continue to enrich the lives of readers for many generations to come.
No book provides more powerful images of Life
This, in my opinion, is among the greatest sociological books existing. Unlike any other book you have read: there is no jealousy in this book, no bickering, no envy, no greed, no pettiness -- there is only life and the struggle for life. That life is good. That living is good. That making it through the day, or the hour, is good.
The book pounds the reader through the confines of the frozen north, where two men attempt to transport a decedent in his coffin. On the way, hungry wolves pursue the trail -- we can't blame them -- "their muscles are strings" -- the wolves are literally starving to death. The men understand this, but also that they have a job to do.
Later, one of these wolves delivers a few pups, and the pups struggle to live within their den while the mother attempts to find food that is virtually nonexistent. One of these wolves is White Fang -- in his struggle for survival, he must rise above his fears and his teachings, and in so doing, discovers that living is essential, that living is good.
Through trials and tribulations, White Fang understands that love is the highest pinnacle of existence, and that order is the highest essential of Life.
Crammed with so many wonderful scenes, so many poigant and solemn images of life, the struggle for life, the very act of living -- impossible to put down, impossible to ignore.
If you have doubts about your world, your doubts will be shaken if you read this book.
A triumph of the living spirit!
Jack London has written the finest of stories in White Fang. The bar has been raised never to be surpassed. White Fang is the story of life and the will to live. Nothing else! I have read this story many times and have ventured to continue the legacy of "The Blessed Wolf". There has yet to be a novel written of such an exceptional understanding of the energy of life that surges within all living creatures. An energy superceded only by the power of love, loyalty, devotion and honor. The world must read this novel, for it is a part of everything.
