The biting cold and the aching silence of the far North become an unforgettable backdrop for Jack London's vivid, rousing, superbly realistic wilderness adventure stories featuring the author's unique knowledge of the Yukon and the behavior of humans and animals facing nature at its cruelest.

The Call of the Wild—Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time 'To this day Jack London is the most widely read American writer in the world,' E. L. Doctorow wrote in The New York Times Book Review. Generally considered to be London's greatest achievement, The Call of the Wild brought him international acclaim when it was published in 1903. His story of the dog Buck, who learns to survive in the bleak Yukon wilderness, is viewed by many as his symbolic autobiography. 'No other popular writer of his time did any better writing than you will find in The Call of the Wild,' said H. L. Mencken. 'Here, indeed, are all the elements of sound fiction.' White Fang (1906), which London conceived as a 'complete antithesis and companion piece to The Call of the Wild,' is the tale of an abused wolf-dog tamed by exposure to civilization. Also included in this volume is 'To Build a Fire,' a marvelously desolate short story set in the Klondike, but containing all the elements of a classic Greek tragedy. 'The quintessential Jack London is in the on-rushing compulsive-ness of his northern stories,' noted James Dickey. 'Few men have more convincingly examined the connection between the creative powers of the individual writer and the unconscious drive to breed and to survive, found in the natural world. . . . London is in and committed to his creations to a degree very nearly unparalleled in the composition of fiction.'

A prolific and enduringly popular author--and an icon of American fiction--Jack London is a rewarding choice for inclusion in classrooms from middle school to graduate programs. London's biography and the role played by celebrity have garnered considerable attention, but the breadth of his personal experiences and political views and the many historical and cultural contexts that shaped his work are key to gaining a nuanced view of London's corpus of works, as this volume's wide-ranging perspectives and examples attest. The first section of this volume, "Materials," surveys the many resources available for teaching London, including editions of his works, sources for his photography, and audiovisual aids. In part 2, "Approaches," contributors recommend practices for teaching London's works through the lenses of socialism and class, race, gender, ecocriticism and animal studies, theories of evolution, legal theory, and regional history, both in frequently taught texts such as The Call of the Wild, "To Build a Fire," and Martin Eden and in his lesser-known works.

Praise for the print edition:" ... no other reference work on American fiction brings together such an array of authors and texts as this.

Modernist literature might well be accused of going to the dogs. From the strays wandering the streets of Dublin in James Joyce’s Ulysses to the highbred canine subject of Virginia Woolf’s Flush, dogs populate a range of modernist texts. In many ways, the dog in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries became a potent symbol of the modern condition—facing, like the human species, the problem of adapting to modernizing forces that relentlessly outpaced it. Yet the dog in literary modernism does not function as a stand-in for the human. In this book, Karalyn Kendall-Morwick examines the human-dog relationship in modernist works by Virginia Woolf, Jack London, Albert Payson Terhune, J. R. Ackerley, and Samuel Beckett, among others. Drawing from the evolutionary theories of Charles Darwin and the scientific, literary, and philosophical work of Donna Haraway, Temple Grandin, and Carrie Rohman, she makes a case for the dog as a coevolutionary and coadapting partner of humans. As our coevolutionary partners, dogs destabilize the human: not the autonomous, self-transparent subject of Western humanism, the human is instead contingent, shaped by its material interactions with other species. By demonstrating how modernist representations of dogs ultimately mongrelize the human, this book reveals dogs’ status both as instigators of the crisis of the modern subject and as partners uniquely positioned to help humans adapt to the turbulent forces of modernization. Accessibly written and convincingly argued, this study shows how dogs challenge the autonomy of the human subject and the humanistic underpinnings of traditional literary forms. It will find favor with students and scholars of modernist literature and animal studies.

This Book Offers Provocative New Readings Of Animal Narratives That Have Changed The Way We Think About Animals, Writing And Postcoloniality. It Is Contended That Animal Tales Are Much More Complex And Political Than Is Generally Assumed. By Discussing Several Well-Known Animal Tales By Canonical And Popular Writers In Their Cultural And Historical Context, It Is Argued That Animal Writing Enters The Contested Terrain Of Human Values And Ideologies, And That Many Famous Nineteenth- And Twentieth-Century Animal Narratives Address Questions Of Race, Gender And Nation.This Volume Consists Of An Introduction And Eight Chapters Dealing With The Representation Of The Animal In Postcolonial Contexts That Seek To Demonstrate As To How Postcolonial Theories Can Be Brought To Bear Upon Narratives Usually Read In A More Conventional Manner. The Authors Studied Include Beatrix Potter, Rudyard Kipling, Jack London, Ernest Thompson Seton, Percy Fitzpatrick, Joy Adamson, Gerald Durrell, J.M. Coetzee, Bernard Malamud And Paul Auster.

This study examines masculinity and individualism in four American novels of the 1920s and 1930s usually regarded as belonging to the genre of hard-boiled fiction. The novels under study are Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett, The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain, They Shoot Horses, Don't They? by Horace McCoy, and To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway. In this first full-length study of gender in hard-boiled fiction the genre is discussed as a representation of the ideologies of masculinity and individualism. Hard-boiled fiction is located in its historical and cultural context and it is argued that the genre, with its explicit emphasis on masculinity and masculine virtues, attempts to reaffirm a masculine order. The study argues that this emphasis is a counter-reaction to more general changes in the gender relations of the period. Indeed, hard-boiled fiction is argued to be an attempt to reconstruct a masculine identity based on anti-modern values generally accepted in the cultural context of the genre.

A LAUGH-OUT-LOUD PARODY: AN lLLUSTRATED GUIDE FOR--AND BY--DOGS, UNLOCKING THE MYSTERIES OF DOGHOOD AND TEACHING THEM HOW TO DO THE VERY ACTIVITIES THAT HUMAN SOCIETY SAYS ARE WRONG. The Dangerous Book for Dogs asks a simple question: isn't there more to being a dog than wearing a mini cashmere sweater and riding around in a $400 evening clutch? What about the simple pleasures of life -- feeling the wind in your fur, digging up the grass beneath your paws, smelling another dog's butt? Isn't that part of the great joy of being a dog? Written (with help) by dogs and for dogs, The Dangerous Book For Dogs provides insight on everything from the tastiest styles of shoes to chew to the proper method for terrorizing squirrels. It also contains portraits of noble dogs throughout history, the mysteries of cats and humans, and everything else your dog ever wanted to know but was afraid to ask–like how to make toys out of human's household items, or how to escape from a humiliating reindeer costume. Generously illustrated with drawings by cartoonist Emily Flake, this hilarious parody is for good dogs, bad dogs, and the millions of people who love them. Rex and Sparky wrote this parody without authorization (because they are dogs and they do what they want.)

This study questions the widely held perception that books, as an artistic medium, are superior to and more respectable than film or television, sometimes considered frivolous and pernicious. Criticism of both the big and small screens often obscures their signal accomplishments and the entertainment and insight they provide. The author analyzes our distaste for these media--and the romanticizing of the printed word that accompanies it--and argues that books and films are in fact quite complementary. A broad survey of film and TV offerings explores what enacted narratives have taught us about the nature of childhood.

This new edition of Writing Short Stories has been updated throughout to include new and revised exercises, up-to-date coverage of emerging technologies and a new glossary of key terms and techniques. Ailsa Cox, a published short-story writer, guides the reader through the key aspects of the craft, provides a variety of case studies and examples of how others have approached the genre and sets a series of engaging exercises to help hone your skills. This inspiring book is the ideal guide for those new to the genre or for anyone wanting to improve their technique.