Jack London, 1903

LONDON, Jack (1876-1916). The Call of the Wild. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1903.

First edition of London's best-known work, in dust jacket. London's enduring adventure tale, set during the Klondike Gold Rush, is one of the greatest stories ever to be centered on a realistic animal; in this case the sled dog, Buck. “But especially [Buck] loved to run in the dim twilight of the summer midnights, listening to the subdued and sleepy murmurs of the forest, reading signs and sounds as a man may read a book, and seeking for the mysterious something that called—called, waking or sleeping, at all times, for him to come" (page 172). BAL 11876; Peter Parley to Penrod, p. 119; Sisson & Martens, p.13ff.

Octavo (192 x 130mm). Illustrated by Philip R. Goodwin and Charles Livingston Bull, decorated by Charles Hooper; with full color plates, plates printed in blue, and chapter vignettes; 2 pp. of ads at rear. Original pictorial cloth, top edge gilt (a little rubbing to spine, rear cover a little scratched, front hinge starting, one gathering partially sprung). Printed dust jacket (restoration to spine panel, flap folds, and edges, with spine panel largely in facsimile).