This is the book that made Jack London famous. First published in 1903, it sold over a million copies and has remained in print ever since. This is the story of Buck, half St. Bernard, half Scotch collie, whose magnificent spirit and stamina withstood the cruelest elements in nature but whose great heart was broken by man's brutality.
Buck lived on a big, comfortable place in sunny Southern California. Four years old and king of all he surveyed, Buck was not a pampered house dog. Hunting and swimming with the Judge and his sons kept Buck's one hundred and forty pounds all steel and muscle. When, in the fall of 1897, the Klondike gold rush brought men to the frozen North from all over, this kind of dog was much sought after—and Buck was stolen.
In the cold, primitive, savage land of the Klondike, Buck was put to work drawing sledges. He learned that here men and animals knew no law but that of club and fang. Though the big dog suffered, he never gave in. Little by little, primeval instincts began to direct his actions, and once he heard a clear, far call which he could not understand.
But when John Thornton came into his life, Buck found a master he could love to the point of adoration. All that was strong and good in the centuries-old relationship between dog and man existed between Buck and John Thornton. When Thornton was brutally murdered, Buck turned his back on humankind and answered the ancient call of his ancestors—the wolves.
This magnificent classic, together with Brown Wolf and That Spot, two almost equally famous dog stories, make a volume of Jack London that every youngster will be proud to own.
Beautifully illustrated in color and black and white exclusively for The Illustrated Junior Library.
—from the dust jacket
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