The Call of The Wild - Reception and Legacy

Reception and Legacy

The Call of the Wild was enormously popular from the moment it was published. H. L. Menken wrote of London's story, "No other popular writer of his time did any better writing than you will find in Call of the Wild". A reviewer for The New York Times wrote of it in 1903, "If nothing else makes Mr. London's book popular, it ought to be rendered so by the complete way in which it will satisfy the love of dog fights apparently inherent in every man." The reviewer for The Atlantic Monthly wrote that it was a book "untouched by bookishness", and that "The making and the achievement of such a hero constitute, not a pretty story at all, but a very powerful one."

When The Call of the Wild was published the first printing of 10,000 copies sold out immediately and it is still one the best known stories written by an American author. The book was London's first success and from it he gained a readership that stayed with him through his career. The book secured London's success as a writer and furthermore secured him a place in the canon of American literature. Since its publication it has never been out of print and it continues to be read and taught in schools, and has been published in 47 languages.

After the success of The Call of the Wild London wrote to Macmillan in 1904 proposing a second book (White Fang) in which he wanted to describe a dog undergoing a process in reverse of Buck's, a dog that went from wild to tame. "I'm going to reverse the process," he wrote to his editor, "Instead of devolution of decivilization ... I'm going to give the evolution, the civilization of a dog".

The Call of the Wild was first adapted to film by D. W. Griffith in 1908; a second silent film was made in 1923. The 1935 version starring Clark Gable and Loretta Young expanded John Thornton's role and was the first "talkie" to feature the story. The 1972 The Call of the Wild starring Charlton Heston as John Thornton was filmed in Finland.