When Jack London and his brother-in-law headed for the Yukon in 1897, the news of the gold strike had only been known for eleven days. Like thousands of other adventurers, the pair responded immediately to the opportunity to relive the spirit of the frontier, to test their manhood against a hostile environment, and to win the prize of great wealth. Similarly, the atavism of The Call of the Wild answered the nation's desire for an escape from the growing complexity of the modern world.

London's own experience of poverty, grinding factory work, life on the road, and imprisonment had shown him that, for many, life was a brutal struggle for survival. A social Darwinist, influenced by the writings of Herbert Spencer, London was convinced that many of the beaten and degraded people that populated the lower strata of society were there because of hereditary and environmental circumstances...