# Is "The Call of the Wild" by Jack London a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of The Call of the Wild by Jack London (The Macmillan Company, 1903) is identified by: The first printing's copyright page reads "Set up, electrotyped, and published July, 1903" and NOTHING FURTHER — the single most reliable point. The US Macmillan, New York, July 1903 edition is the true first, confirming the census claim; the William Heinemann, London, 1903 edition is the first English edition, illustrated with 17 plates by Charles Edward Hooper, and is separately collected.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- The first printing's copyright page reads "Set up, electrotyped, and published July, 1903" and NOTHING FURTHER — the single most reliable point
- Later printings add a reprint list beneath it reading "Reprinted July
- August, September, December 1903
- January, March 1904," so any copy carrying "Reprinted" lines is not a first printing
- Bound in vertically ribbed green cloth pictorially stamped in red, white/black and gilt, top edge gilt with other edges uncut; illustrated endpapers, a color frontispiece with bound tissue guard, a two-color illustrated title page, and 10 tipped-in full-page color plates by Philip R. Goodwin and Charles Livingston Bull
- BAL 11876
- Publisher imprint reads The Macmillan Company

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Jack London |
| Publisher | The Macmillan Company |
| Year | 1903 |
| True first | US edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | The first printing's copyright page reads "Set up, electrotyped, and published July, 1903" and NOTHING FURTHER — the single most reliable… |
| Book-club edition exists? | Yes |

## Points of issue
The first printing's copyright page reads "Set up, electrotyped, and published July, 1903" and NOTHING FURTHER — the single most reliable point. Later printings add a reprint list beneath it reading "Reprinted July; August, September, December 1903; January, March 1904," so any copy carrying "Reprinted" lines is not a first printing. Bound in vertically ribbed green cloth pictorially stamped in red, white/black and gilt, top edge gilt with other edges uncut; illustrated endpapers, a color frontispiece with bound tissue guard, a two-color illustrated title page, and 10 tipped-in full-page color plates by Philip R. Goodwin and Charles Livingston Bull. BAL 11876; Sisson & Martens p. 13. Where present, the pictorial jacket should be priced, with the price present at the flap.

## Is this the true first?
The US Macmillan, New York, July 1903 edition is the true first, confirming the census claim; the William Heinemann, London, 1903 edition is the first English edition, illustrated with 17 plates by Charles Edward Hooper, and is separately collected. REFUTED: a claim recycled across several online listings holds that the Heinemann preceded Macmillan by a month and that the American first was "issued without illustrations." Both are false — the Macmillan first is dated July 1903 on its own copyright page and contains the color frontispiece and 10 tipped-in plates. Do not repeat that claim. The exact month of the Heinemann could not be settled from the sources consulted (some copies are dated 1904), so its precise position after the Macmillan is left open. Note also that the true first appearance in any form is the serialization in The Saturday Evening Post, 20 June to 18 July 1903, in five installments, which precedes the first book edition.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
The dominant trap is the Grosset & Dunlap reprint, which carries the original 1903 Macmillan copyright yet is a reprint: check for the Grosset & Dunlap imprint at the spine foot and on the title page. The 1906 Grosset & Dunlap was printed from Macmillan's November 1906 sheets and is identified by "Macmillan's Standard Library" at the spine and at the head of the half-title; a 1915 Grosset & Dunlap printing states "SET UP AND ELECTROTYPED MAY 1915" on the copyright page. No book-club issue applies to the 1903 first.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *The Call of the Wild* by Jack London a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/the-call-of-the-wild
CC BY 4.0. Part of the Canonical First-Edition Points of Issue dataset (https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/api/first-edition-titles.json). Last reviewed 2026-07-04.