The Call Of The Wild: "I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them."
By Jack London
()
About this ebook
John Griffith "Jack" London was born John Griffith Chaney on January 12th, 1876 in San Francisco. His father, William Chaney, was living with his mother Flora Wellman when she became pregnant. Chaney insisted she have an abortion. Flora's response was to turn a gun on herself. Although her wounds were not severe the trauma made her temporarily deranged. In late 1876 his mother married John London and the young child was brought to live with them as they moved around the Bay area, eventually settling in Oakland where Jack completed grade school. Jack also worked hard at several jobs, sometimes 12-18 hours a day, but his dream was university. He was lent money for that and after intense studying enrolled in the summer of 1896 at the University of California in Berkeley. In 1897, at 21 , Jack searched out newspaper accounts of his mother's suicide attempt and the name of his biological father. He wrote to William Chaney, then living in Chicago. Chaney said he could not be London's father because he was impotent; and casually asserted that London's mother had relations with other men. Jack, devastated by the response, quit Berkeley and went to the Klondike. Though equally because of his continuing dire finances Jack might have taken that as the excuse he needed to leave. In the Klondike Jack began to gather material for his writing but also accumulated many health problems, including scurvy, hip and leg problems many of which he then carried for life. By the late 1890's Jack was regularly publishing short stories and by the turn of the century full blown novels. By 1904 Jack had married, fathered two children and was now in the process of divorcing. A stint as a reporter on the Russo-Japanese war of 1904 was equal amounts trouble and experience. But that experience was always put to good use in a remarkable output of work. Twelve years later Jack had amassed a wealth of writings many of which remain world classics. He had a reputation as a social activist and a tireless friend of the workers. And yet on November 22nd 1916 Jack London died in a cottage on his ranch at the age of only 40. Here we present The Call Of The Wild.
Jack London
Jack London (1876-1916) was an American novelist and journalist. Born in San Francisco to Florence Wellman, a spiritualist, and William Chaney, an astrologer, London was raised by his mother and her husband, John London, in Oakland. An intelligent boy, Jack went on to study at the University of California, Berkeley before leaving school to join the Klondike Gold Rush. His experiences in the Klondike—hard labor, life in a hostile environment, and bouts of scurvy—both shaped his sociopolitical outlook and served as powerful material for such works as “To Build a Fire” (1902), The Call of the Wild (1903), and White Fang (1906). When he returned to Oakland, London embarked on a career as a professional writer, finding success with novels and short fiction. In 1904, London worked as a war correspondent covering the Russo-Japanese War and was arrested several times by Japanese authorities. Upon returning to California, he joined the famous Bohemian Club, befriending such members as Ambrose Bierce and John Muir. London married Charmian Kittredge in 1905, the same year he purchased the thousand-acre Beauty Ranch in Sonoma County, California. London, who suffered from numerous illnesses throughout his life, died on his ranch at the age of 40. A lifelong advocate for socialism and animal rights, London is recognized as a pioneer of science fiction and an important figure in twentieth century American literature.
Read more from Jack London
50 Great Love Letters You Have To Read (Golden Deer Classics) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Classic American Short Story MEGAPACK ® (Volume 1): 34 of the Greatest Stories Ever Written Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Deadline Artists—Scandals, Tragedies & Triumphs: More of America's Greatest Newspaper Columns Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5To Build a Fire Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Greatest American Short Stories: 50+ Classics of American Literature Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Victorian Mystery Megapack: 27 Classic Mystery Tales Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Classic Tales of Science Fiction & Fantasy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jack London: The Greatest Short Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Post-Apocalyptic Collection Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Plague, Pestilence & Apocalypse MEGAPACK ®: 18 Tales of Doom Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5White Fang: Level 2 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Greatest American Short Stories (Vol. 1) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAmerican Classics (Omnibus Edition) (Diversion Classics) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTRICK OR TREAT Boxed Set: 200+ Eerie Tales from the Greatest Storytellers: Horror Classics, Mysterious Cases, Gothic Novels, Monster Tales & Supernatural Stories: Sweeney Todd, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, Frankenstein, The Vampire, Dracula, Sleepy Hollow, From Beyond… Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Jack London Collection Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe People of the Abyss Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Moloch Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Related to The Call Of The Wild
Related ebooks
The Call of the Wild (Annotated) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Call of the Wild Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Call of The Wild (Pocket Classic) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jack London Six Pack: The Call of the Wild, White Fang, A Day’s Lodging, John Barleycorn, Love of Life and Hobos in the Night Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Call of the Wild and White Fang Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Tales of Gold Rush: The Call of the Wild, White Fang, Burning Daylight, Son of the Wolf & The God of His Fathers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Call of the Wild: London's Most Famous Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKlondike Two Pack - The Call of the Wild and White Fang Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Call of the Wild and White Fang (Illustrated by Philip R. Goodwin and Charles Livingston Bull) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tales of the Gold Rush: Collection: The Call of the Wild, White Fang, Burning Daylight, Son of the Wolf & The God of His Fathers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSelected Novels Of Jack London: The Call of the Wild, The Sea-Wolf, and White Fang Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Collected works of Jack London (illustrated): The Call of the Wild, White Fang, Love of Life, To Build a Fire Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJack London Collection Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJack London: The Klondike Rush Collection (The Call Of The Wild + White Fang) (Zongo Classics) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Call of the Wild + White Fang: The Adventure Classics of the American North Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Call of the Wild (ArcadianPress Edition) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Call of the Wild: The Original 1903 Edition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Call of the Wild + White Fang + The Son of the Wolf: 3 London Classics in One Edition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Call of the Wild (Annotated With Author Biography) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Call of the Wild (new classics) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Call of the Wild: Bestsellers and famous Books Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Call of the Wild - complete edition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Call of the Wild by Jack London Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Call of the Wild: The Original Classic Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Call of the Wild: Including "White Fang" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Call of the Wild - Unabridged Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Call Of The Wild (Book Center) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Call of the Wild (Diversion Classics) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Jack London Collection - Call of the Wild and White Fang - Unabridged Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Classics For You
The Master & Margarita Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Flowers for Algernon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5East of Eden Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Confederacy of Dunces Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fellowship Of The Ring: Being the First Part of The Lord of the Rings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Little Women (Seasons Edition -- Winter) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Silmarillion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Odyssey: (The Stephen Mitchell Translation) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Farewell to Arms Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Count of Monte-Cristo English and French Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5As I Lay Dying Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Old Man and the Sea: The Hemingway Library Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5For Whom the Bell Tolls: The Hemingway Library Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Learn French! Apprends l'Anglais! THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY: In French and English Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sense and Sensibility (Centaur Classics) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Jungle: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Titus Groan Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wuthering Heights (with an Introduction by Mary Augusta Ward) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Animal Farm: A Fairy Story Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Canterbury Tales Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Bell Jar: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Good Man Is Hard To Find And Other Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Things They Carried Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Persuasion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ulysses: With linked Table of Contents Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Murder of Roger Ackroyd Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rebecca Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Republic by Plato Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for The Call Of The Wild
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
The Call Of The Wild - Jack London
The Call of the Wild by Jack London
John Griffith Jack
London was born John Griffith Chaney on January 12th, 1876 in San Francisco.
His father, William Chaney, was living with his mother Flora Wellman when she became pregnant. Chaney insisted she have an abortion. Flora's response was to turn a gun on herself. Although her wounds were not severe the trauma made her temporarily deranged.
In late 1876 his mother married John London and the young child was brought to live with them as they moved around the Bay area, eventually settling in Oakland where Jack completed grade school.
Jack also worked hard at several jobs, sometimes 12-18 hours a day, but his dream was university. He was lent money for that and after intense studying enrolled in the summer of 1896 at the University of California in Berkeley.
In 1897, at 21 , Jack searched out newspaper accounts of his mother's suicide attempt and the name of his biological father. He wrote to William Chaney, then living in Chicago. Chaney said he could not be London's father because he was impotent; and casually asserted that London's mother had relations with other men. Jack, devastated by the response, quit Berkeley and went to the Klondike. Though equally because of his continuing dire finances Jack might have taken that as the excuse he needed to leave.
In the Klondike Jack began to gather material for his writing but also accumulated many health problems, including scurvy, hip and leg problems many of which he then carried for life.
By the late 1890's Jack was regularly publishing short stories and by the turn of the century full blown novels.
By 1904 Jack had married, fathered two children and was now in the process of divorcing. A stint as a reporter on the Russo-Japanese war of 1904 was equal amounts trouble and experience. But that experience was always put to good use in a remarkable output of work.
Twelve years later Jack had amassed a wealth of writings many of which remain world classics. He had a reputation as a social activist and a tireless friend of the workers. And yet on November 22nd 1916 Jack London died in a cottage on his ranch at the age of only 40.
Index Of Contents
Chapter I - Into the Primitive
Chapter II - The Law of Club and Fang
Chapter III - The Dominant Primordial Beast
Chapter IV - Who Has Won to Mastership
Chapter V - The Toil of Trace and Tail
Chapter VI - For the Love of a Man
Chapter VII - The Sounding of the Call
Jack London – A Short Biography
Jack London – A Concise Bibliography
Chapter I. Into the Primitive
"Old longings nomadic leap,
Chafing at custom's chain;
Again from its brumal sleep
Wakens the ferine strain."
Buck did not read the newspapers, or he would have known that trouble was brewing, not alone for himself, but for every tide-water dog, strong of muscle and with warm, long hair, from Puget Sound to San Diego. Because men, groping in the Arctic darkness, had found a yellow metal, and because steamship and transportation companies were booming the find, thousands of men were rushing into the Northland. These men wanted dogs, and the dogs they wanted were heavy dogs, with strong muscles by which to toil, and furry coats to protect them from the frost.
Buck lived at a big house in the sun-kissed Santa Clara Valley. Judge Miller's place, it was called. It stood back from the road, half hidden among the trees, through which glimpses could be caught of the wide cool veranda that ran around its four sides. The house was approached by gravelled driveways which wound about through wide-spreading lawns and under the interlacing boughs of tall poplars. At the rear things were on even a more spacious scale than at the front. There were great stables, where a dozen grooms and boys held forth, rows of vine-clad servants' cottages, an endless and orderly array of outhouses, long grape arbors, green pastures, orchards, and berry patches. Then there was the pumping plant for the artesian well, and the big cement tank where Judge Miller's boys took their morning plunge and kept cool in the hot afternoon.
And over this great demesne Buck ruled. Here he was born, and here he had lived the four years of his life. It was true, there were other dogs, There could not but be other dogs on so vast a place, but they did not count. They came and went, resided in the populous kennels, or lived obscurely in the recesses of the house after the fashion of Toots, the Japanese pug, or Ysabel, the Mexican hairless, strange creatures that rarely put nose out of doors or set foot to ground. On the other hand, there were the fox terriers, a score of them at least, who yelped fearful promises at Toots and Ysabel looking out of the windows at them and protected by a legion of housemaids armed with brooms and mops.
But Buck was neither house-dog nor kennel-dog. The whole realm was his. He plunged into the swimming tank or went hunting with the Judge's sons; he escorted Mollie and Alice, the Judge's daughters, on long twilight or early morning rambles; on wintry nights he lay at the Judge's feet before the roaring library fire; he carried the Judge's grandsons on his back, or rolled them in the grass, and guarded their footsteps through wild adventures down to the fountain in the stable yard, and even beyond, where the paddocks were, and the berry patches. Among the terriers he stalked imperiously, and Toots and Ysabel he utterly ignored, for he was king, king over all creeping, crawling, flying things of Judge Miller's place, humans included.
His father, Elmo, a huge St. Bernard, had been the Judge's inseparable companion, and Buck bid fair to follow in the way of his father. He was not so large, he weighed only one hundred and forty pounds, for his mother, Shep, had been a Scotch shepherd dog. Nevertheless, one hundred and forty pounds, to which was added the dignity that comes of good living and universal respect, enabled him to carry himself in right royal fashion. During the four years since his puppyhood he had lived the life of a sated aristocrat; he had a fine pride in himself, was even a trifle egotistical, as country gentlemen sometimes become because of their insular situation. But he had saved himself by not becoming a mere pampered house-dog. Hunting and kindred outdoor delights had kept down the fat and hardened his muscles; and to him, as to the cold-tubbing races, the love of water had been a tonic and a health preserver.
And this was the manner of dog Buck was in the fall of 1897, when the Klondike strike dragged men from all the world into the frozen North. But Buck did not read the newspapers, and he did not know that Manuel, one of the gardener's helpers, was an undesirable acquaintance. Manuel had one besetting sin. He loved to play Chinese lottery. Also, in his gambling, he had one besetting weakness, faith in a system; and this made his damnation certain. For to play a system requires money, while the wages of a gardener's helper do not lap over the needs of a wife and numerous progeny.
The Judge was at a meeting of the Raisin Growers' Association, and the boys were busy organizing an athletic club, on the memorable night of Manuel's treachery. No one saw him and Buck go off through the orchard on what Buck imagined was merely a stroll. And with the exception of a solitary man, no one saw them arrive at the little flag station known as College Park. This man talked with Manuel, and money chinked between them.
You might wrap up the goods before you deliver 'm,
the stranger said gruffly, and Manuel doubled a piece of stout rope around Buck's neck under the collar.
Twist it, an' you'll choke 'm plentee,
said Manuel, and the stranger grunted a ready affirmative.
Buck had accepted the rope with quiet dignity. To be sure, it was an unwonted performance: but he had learned to trust in men he knew, and to give them credit for a wisdom that outreached his own. But when the ends of the rope were placed in the stranger's hands, he growled menacingly. He had merely intimated his displeasure, in his pride believing that to intimate was to command. But to his surprise the rope tightened around his neck, shutting off his breath. In quick rage he sprang at the man, who met him halfway, grappled him close by the throat, and with a deft twist threw him over on his back. Then the rope tightened mercilessly, while Buck struggled in a fury, his tongue lolling out of his mouth and his great chest panting futilely. Never in all his life had he been so vilely treated, and never in all his life had he been so angry. But his strength ebbed, his eyes glazed, and he knew nothing when the train was flagged and the two men threw him into the baggage car.
The next he knew, he was dimly aware that his tongue was hurting and that he was being jolted along in some kind of a conveyance. The hoarse shriek of a locomotive whistling a crossing told him where he was. He had travelled too often with the Judge not to know the sensation of riding in a baggage car. He opened his eyes, and into them came the unbridled anger of a kidnapped king. The man sprang for his throat, but Buck was too quick for him. His jaws closed on the hand, nor did they relax till his senses were choked out of him once more.
Yep, has fits,
the man said, hiding his mangled hand from the baggageman, who had been attracted by the sounds of struggle. I'm takin' 'm up for the boss to 'Frisco. A crack dog-doctor there thinks that he can cure 'm.
Concerning that night's ride, the man spoke most eloquently for himself, in a little shed back of a saloon on the San Francisco water front.
All I get is fifty for it,
he grumbled; an' I wouldn't do it over for a thousand, cold cash.
His hand was wrapped in a bloody handkerchief, and the right trouser leg was ripped from knee to ankle.
How much did the other mug get?
the saloon-keeper demanded.
A hundred,
was the reply. Wouldn't take a sou less, so help me.
That makes a hundred and fifty,
the saloon-keeper calculated; "and he's worth it, or I'm