"In 'The Mettle of the Pasture' Mr. Allen has reached the high-water mark thus far of his genius as a novelist. The beauty of his literary style, the picturesque quality of his description, the vitality, fulness, and strength of his artistic powers never showed to better advantage.... Its reader is fascinated by the picturesque descriptions, the humor, the clear insight, and the absolute interest of his creations."—The Brooklyn Eagle.
The Call of the Wild
By JACK LONDON
Author of "The Children of the Frost," etc., etc.
Illustrated Cloth 12mo $1.50
All those who have read it believe that Jack London's new story, "The Call of the Wild," will prove one of the half-dozen memorable books of 1903. This story takes hold of the universal things in human and animal nature; it is one of those strong, thrilling, brilliant things which are better worth reading the second time than the first. Entertaining stories we have in plenty; but this is something more—it is a piece of literature. At the same time it is an unforgettable picture of the whole wild, thrilling, desperate, vigorous, primeval life of the Klondike regions in the years after the gold fever set in. It ranks beside the best things of its kind in English literature.
The tale itself has for its hero a superb dog named Buck, a cross between a St. Bernard and a Scotch shepherd. Buck is stolen from his home in Southern California, where Judge Miller and his family have petted him, taken to the Klondike, and put to work drawing sledges. First he has to be broken in, to learn "the law of club and fang." His splendid blood comes out through the suffering and abuse, the starvation and the unremitting toil, the hardship and the fighting and the bitter cold. He wins his way to the mastership of his team. He becomes the best sledge dog in Alaska. And all the while there is coming out in him "the dominant primordial beast."
But meantime, all through the story, the interest is almost as much in the human beings who own Buck, or who drive him, or who come in contact with him or his masters in some way or other, as in the dog himself. He is merely the central figure in an extraordinarily graphic and impressive picture of life.
In none of his previous stories has Mr. London achieved so strong a grip on his theme. In none of them has he allowed his theme so strongly to grip him. He has increased greatly in his power to tell a story. The first strong note in the book is the coming out of the dog's good blood through infinite hardship; the last how he finally obeyed "the call of the wild" after his last and best friend, Thornton, was killed by the Indians.