The Call of the Wild

This triumphant tale of survival follows the adventures of Buck, half-St. Bernard and half-Scottish sheepdog, who is forced into the brutal life of a sled-dog during the heady days of the Alaska gold rush. The Call of the Wild, considered by many to be Jack London's greatest novel, is a gripping survival story of a heroic dog that, thrust into the brutal life of the Alaska Gold Rush, ultimately faces a choice between living in man's world and returning to nature. Adventure and animal-story enthusiasts as well as students and devotees of American literature will find this classic work a thrilling, memorable reading experience. Jack London's novels and ruggedly individual life seemed to embody American hopes, frustrations, and romantic longings in the turbulent first years of the twentieth century, years infused with the wonder and excitement of great technological and historic change. The author's restless spirit, taste for a life of excitement, and probing mind led him on a series of hard-edged adventures from the Klondike to the South Seas. Out of these sometimes harrowing experiences — and his fascination with the theories of such thinkers as Darwin, Spencer, and Marx — came the inspiration for novels of adventure that would make him one of America’s most popular writers. Stories of hardship amid the wilderness and on the open sea typify London's works. White Fang, a companion work of literature to The Call of the Wild, is a classic animal adventure story about a hybrid wild wolf-dog's battle for survival and its transformation into domesticity. The Sea-Wolf, a 1904 maritime classic hailed by critics as one of the greatest sea stories ever written, is an adventure story composed of the struggle for survival, personal discovery and growth. Dover’s Thrift Editions offer a superlative collection of classic literature at exceptional value, with over 700 titles available by world-famous authors in fiction, nonfiction, plays, and poetry.