Selected Works of Jack London

Author: Jack London (USA)
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-04-01
Features: World literary classics reflect the culture of the specific era described by the author. Beyond fluent writing, realistic descriptions, and detailed portrayals, reading them brings more than a sense of historical and cultural reminiscence of that period. This book is carefully selected by experts specializing in the history of Western development and Western culture, along with professional translators. These works represent Western literature and have been annotated without omissions or artificial modifications, strictly adhering to the style of the original texts to provide readers with authentic Western classics. It allows readers to freely read, imagine, and explore. Unconsciously, you will find that your English proficiency has greatly improved—not only in vocabulary and grammar but also in your overall understanding of the English language and Western culture.
Buck did not read the newspapers, or he would have known that trouble was brewing, not only for himself but for every tidewater dog, strong of muscle and with warm, long hair, from Puget Sound to San Diego. Because men, grooping in the Arctic darkness, had found a yellow metal, and because steamship and transportation companies were booming the find, thousands of men were rushing into the Northland. These men wanted dogs, and the dogs they wanted were heavy dogs, with strong muscles by which to toil, and furry coats to protect them from the frost.
Buck lived in a big house in the sun-kissed Santa Clara Valley. Judge Miller's place, it was called. It stood back from the road, half hidden among the trees, through which glimpses could be caught of the wide cover and that ran around its four sides. The house was approached by gravelled driveways which wound about through wide-spreading lawns and under the interlacing boughs of tall poplars. Here things were on an even more spacious scale than at the front. There were great stables, where a dozen rooms and boys held forth, rows of vine-clad servants' cottages, an endless and orderly array of outhouses, long grape arbors, green pastures, orchards, and berry patches. Then there was the pumping plant for the artesian well, and the big cement tank where Judge Miller's boys took their morning plunge and kept cool in the hot afternoon. And over this great demense Buck ruled. Here he was born, and here he had lived the four years of his life. It was true, there were other dogs. There could not but be other dogs on such a vast place, but they did not count. They came and went, resided in the populous kennels, or lived obscurely in the recesses of the house after the fashion of Toots, the Japanese pug, or Ysabel, the Mexican hairless—a strange creature that rarely put nose out of doors or set foot to ground. On the other hand, there were the fox terriers, a score of them at least, who...