The Call of The Wild is Jack London’s masterpiece, this dramatic account of the adventures of Buck, a very large, very tough and very resourceful dog that gets kidnapped away from his lovely Californian ranch to meet his destiny in the harsh land of the Far North in the days of the Klondike gold-rush in northern Canada, was an instantaneous worldwide success the minute it was published, selling over a million copies in the first year. It has remained one of the most-read works of American literature ever since. London's story is a tale of survival and a return to primitivism. Pizer writes that: "the strong, the shrewd, and the cunning shall prevail when ... life is bestial". London spent almost a year in the Yukon, and his observations form much of the material for the book. The story was serialized in the Saturday Evening Post in the summer of 1903 and was published a month later in book form. The book's great popularity and success made a reputation for London. As early as 1923, the story was adapted to film, and it has since seen several more cinematic adaptations. The first adaptation of London's story was a silent film made in 1923. The 1935 version starring Clark Gable and Loretta Young expanded John Thornton's role and was the first "talkie" to feature the story. The 1972 movie The Call of the Wild, starring Charlton Heston as John Thornton, was filmed in Finland. You can listen online to free English audiobook “The Call of The Wild” by Jack London on our website.
