Understanding the Call of the Wild: A Student Casebook to Issues, Sources, and Historical Documents

London's adventure tale The Call of the Wild explores the complex relationships between man and nature, and animals' struggle with their own nature in man's world. In this interdisciplinary study, a rich collection of primary documents point out the many issues that make this story as poignant and pertinent today as when it was written nearly a century ago. Compiled here for the first time is documentation from sources as varied as century-old newspaper accounts, legislative materials, advertisements, poetry, journals, and other startling firsthand accounts. The story's historical setting, the Yukon Gold Rush, is brought vividly into focus for readers, with firsthand accounts of the unimaginable hardships faced by the prospectors in the Klondike and Alaskan Gold Fields.

CLAUDIA DURST JOHNSON is Professor Emeritus at the University of Alabama, where she served as chair of the English Department for 12 years. She is series editor of the Greenwood Press "Literature in Context" series, for which she has authored numerous works including Understanding To Kill a Mockingbird (1994), Understanding The Scarlet Letter (1995), Understanding Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1996), Understanding The Crucible (1998) and most recently Understanding The Grapes of Wrath (1999).