Scarce and sought-after first edition book: The Call of the Wild by Jack London. First edition, with two pages of publisher's advertisements at rear. NY: The Macmillan Company, 1903. Hardcover bound in the publisher's original vertically ribbed pictorial green cloth with gilt title and design stamped in red, black, and white, 5.5 x 7.75, 231 pages. Complete with 11 full-page color printed plates including frontispiece (tissue guard absent) and 7 full-page woodcuts by Philip P. Goodwin and Charles Livingston Bull, with numerous decorations by Charles Edward Hooper. Book condition: VG-/None, with moderate edgewear, some scuffing and rubbing to boards, wear to spine extremities, rubbing to gilt top edge, and ownership inscription to half-title page.
Named by Modern Library as one of the 100 greatest novels of the 20th century, The Call of the Wild is recognized as 'one of the first American novels to examine the quest of the pioneering individual who breaks away from the sheltered environment of civilization and is romantically compelled to find freedom in nature. In the early part of the century this was considered the American dream' (Parker, 16).
