White Fang
HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics.‘Fear urged him to go back, but growth drove him on…‘Set in the frozen forests of the Yukon Territory, Canada, during the Klondike Gold Rush of the 1890s, ‘White Fang’ tells the story of a young wolf-dog’s journey from the wild into human territory. As White Fang learns that civilisation is every bit as vicious and violent as nature – and that survival is only awarded to the fittest – we too see how instinct, sensation and emotion drive every one of us.Published in 1906 to wide and instant acclaim, this is a remarkable and moving look at the timeless relationship between man and dog.
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WHITE FANG
Jack London
William Collins
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This eBook edition published by William Collins in 2014
Life & Times section © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
Gerard Cheshire asserts his moral right as author of the Life & Times section
Classic Literature: Words and Phrases adapted from Collins English Dictionary
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Source ISBN: 9780007558124
Ebook Edition © August 2014 ISBN: 9780007558131
Version: 2014-07-30
In 1819, millworker William Collins from Glasgow, Scotland, set up a company for printing and publishing pamphlets, sermons, hymn books, and prayer books. That company was Collins and was to mark the birth of HarperCollins Publishers as we know it today. The long tradition of Collins dictionary publishing can be traced back to the ï¬rst dictionary William published in 1824, Greek and English Lexicon. Indeed, from 1840 onwards, he began to produce illustrated dictionaries and even obtained a licence to print and publish the Bible.
Soon after, William published the ï¬rst Collins novel, Ready Reckoner; however, it was the time of the Long Depression, where harvests were poor, prices were high, potato crops had failed, and violence was erupting in Europe. As a result, many factories across the country were forced to close down and William chose to retire in 1846, partly due to the hardships he was facing.
Aged 30, Williamâs son, William II, took over the business. A keen humanitarian with a warm heart and a generous spirit, William II was truly âVictorianâ in his outlook. He introduced new, up-to-date steam presses and published affordable editions of Shakespeareâs works and ThePilgrimâs Progress, making them available to the masses for the ï¬rst time. A new demand for educational books meant that success came with the publication of travel books, scientiï¬c books, encyclopedias, and dictionaries. This demand to be educated led to the later publication of atlases, and Collins also held the monopoly on scripture writing at the time.
In the 1860s Collins began to expand and diversify and the idea of âbooks for the millionsâ was developed. Affordable editions of classical literature were published, and in 1903 Collins introduced 10 titles in their Collins Handy Illustrated Pocket Novels. These proved so popular that a few years later this had increased to an output of 50 volumes, selling nearly half a million in their year of publication. In the same year, The Everymanâs Library was also instituted, with the idea of publishing an affordable library of the most important classical works, biographies, religious and philosophical treatments, plays, poems, travel, and adventure. This series eclipsed all competition at the time, and the introduction of paperback books in the 1950s helped to open that market and marked a high point in the industry.
HarperCollins is and has always been a champion of the classics, and the current Collins Classics series follows in this tradition â publishing classical literature that is affordable and available to all. Beautifully packaged, highly collectible, and intended to be reread and enjoyed at every opportunity.
Animals in Literature
The literary establishment has always tended to consign novels about animals to childrenâs fiction, mainly because of the more imaginative and open nature of a young audience. The appeal of the animal kingdom and the anthropomorphism of creatures has always been something that delights children and is perhaps less likely to excite an adult reader.
The anthropomorphism of animals has a long tradition in literature, and can be dated back to Aesop, a Greek storyteller from the 6th century BC. The many fables attributed to Aesop are moralistic stories that often feature animals as their protagonists, such as the well-known tale of The Tortoise and the Hare. It is almost certainly easier for children to access these stories because of the imaginative use of animals, but it is also a useful device for adults because it pares down or simplifies any characterization, and therefore the characters lose the complexity of human personality. This enables the storyteller, or novelist, to focus on the issue at hand, rather than becoming bogged down by intricate character analyses.
