[This story may not be for dog lovers as it contains accounts of cruelty to the title character.] Originally titled "Diable - A Dog" (French for Devil), the title was changed for publication in 1904 to "Bâtard" (French for Bastard). The opening paragraph gives us a hint where the story is heading by introducing the players, a dog ("Bâtard was a devil") and his owner ("Black Leclère was also a devil"). Leclère was a hunter/trapper/adventurer in the Northwest at the time of the Alaskan gold rush. He kept Bâtard with the intent of either breaking his spirit or kill him trying. Bâtard could have run away at any time, but stayed through thick and thin because he was equally dedicated to killing Leclère.
Author
John Griffith Chaney (1876-1916), better known as Jack London, was an American novelist, journalist, and social activist. A pioneer of commercial fiction and American magazines, he was one of the first American authors to become an international celebrity and earn a large fortune from writing. He was also an innovator in the genre that would later become known as science fiction. His most famous works include The Call of the Wild and White Fang, both set in the Klondike Gold Rush, as well as the short stories, "To Build a Fire", "An Odyssey of the North", and "Love of Life". He also wrote about the South Pacific in stories such as "The Pearls of Parlay", and "The Heathen". London was part of the radical literary group, "The Crowd," in San Francisco and a passionate advocate of unionization, workers' rights, and socialism. He wrote several works dealing with these topics, such as his dystopian novel, The Iron Heel, his non-fiction exposé The People of the Abyss, War of the Classes, and Before Adam. London died November 22, 1916, in a sleeping porch in a cottage on his ranch. London's ashes were buried on his property, not far from the Wolf House. The grave is marked by a mossy boulder. The buildings and property were later preserved as Jack London State Historic Park, in Glen Ellen, California.
