Published in 1903, this novel by Jack London has as its protagonist a dog named Buck. Born from crossing a Saint Bernard with a Scottish Shepherd bitch, Buck lives in the warm lands of the South as the undisputed owner of Judge Miller's farm. But in the fall of 1894, when the discovery of the Klondike goldfields draws men from all over the globe to the ice of Alaska, Buck is productively sold and sent there. No longer caressed or respected, in a wild and hostile country, he is forced to endure the harness and pull the Canadian government's mail sleigh. His muscles become hard as iron, the primordial instinct of ancient generations awakens in him, and his cry becomes "the inarticulate voice of the struggle for existence."