Librarian's note: Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780140186512. We need London's mythical wolf almost as much as we need the wildernesses of the world, for without such ghost-animals from the depths of the human subconscious we are alone with the depths of the human subconscious we are alone with ourselves." -From the Introduction This volume of the best of Jack London’s famed stories of the North includes The Call of the Wild, London’s masterpiece about a dog learning to survive in the wilderness, along with “Bâtard,” “Love of Life,” and White Fang, the story of a wild dog’s acclimation to the world of men, generally considered the companion piece to The Call of the Wild. In his Introduction, James Dickey probes London’s strong personal and literary identification with the wolf-dog as symbol and totem. Andrew Sinclair, London’s official biographer and the volume’s editor, provides a brief account of London’s life a sailor, desperado, socialist, adventurer, and acclaimed author.
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.
