Jack London

Enriched Classics offer readers accessible editions of great works of literature enhanced by helpful notes and commentary. Each book includes educational tools alongside the text, enabling students and readers alike to gain a deeper and more developed understanding of the writer and their work. The Call of the Wild tells the story of the magnificent dog, Buck, who's loyalty is tested by cruel men in search of gold in the Klondike. Brutally treated, Buck finds the blood of his wolf ancestors rising within him and breaks free to roam the Alaskan wilderness as leader of a pack instead of as a pawn in his owner's ruthless mission. Enriched Classics enhance your engagement by introducing and explaining the historical and cultural significance of the work, the author's personal history, and what impact this book had on subsequent scholarship. Each book includes discussion questions that help clarify and reinforce major themes and reading recommendations for further research. Read with confidence.

Following Sterlings spectacularly successful launch of its childrens classic novels (240,000 books in print to date),comes a dazzling new series: Classic Starts. The stories are abridged; the quality is complete. Classic Starts treats the worlds beloved tales (and children) with the respect they deserve--all at an incomparable price. Here is the ultimate dog story, one filled with emotion, adventure, and excitement. During the Gold Rush, Buck is snatched away from his peaceful home and brought to the harsh and bitter Yukon to become a sled dog. Will he adapt, and learn to trust men? Or will his newly awakened primitive instincts lead him to search for the freedom he has never known?

Jack London (1876-1916), the critically acclaimed and widely read author of The Call of the Wild (1903), White Fang (1906), and The Sea Wolf (1904), produced this collection of twelve short stories toward the end of his career in 1911. Named after the first story - about a couple that tries in vain to uphold an intensely idealistic romance against the erosions of time and the inconstancy of human nature - the collection explores themes for which London became famous: the struggle for survival in the midst of hostile environments, human nature's most elemental drives, and worker abuse in industrialized society. In "The Apostate" his concerns with the working poor and his dislike of pre-union-era capitalism are evident in a grim story about a young man who is brutalized by the subhuman working conditions in a textile mill, yet achieves a kind of liberation in the end. London's fascination with primitive male characters is evident in "Just Meat," a story of two thieves who plot each other's demise in a selfish grab for a hoard of recently stolen jewelry. Like his famous novel The Sea Wolf, the stories "Make Westing" and "The 'Francis Spaight'" (described as "A True Tale Retold") portray corrupt sea captains abusing and terrorizing their crews during nightmarish voyages. In the concluding story, "A Piece of Steak," London starkly portrays the desperate struggles of an aging boxer as he grapples with a younger contender through most of a grueling twenty-round fight. As all of these stories vividly reveal, many of them brilliantly, no one had a more dispassionate and uncompromising view of human nature at its worst or could express it more forcefully than Jack London.

Two classic tales of dogs, one part wolf and one a Saint Bernard/Scotch shepherd mix that becomes leader of a wolf pack, as they have adventures in the Yukon wilderness with both humans and other animals.