The Call of the Wild (0 of 2), The Old Curiosity Shop (16 of 18) & The Age of Innocence
Bonanza Creek, a gentleman thief and a hideous idol
Dear classics reader,
In this week’s jeweller’s safe you will find:
The launch of our January read-along of The Call of the Wild;
The announcement of our monthly read-along for February;
Birthday wishes to Simone de Beauvoir;
This week’s new classics, including a new Raffles selection;
A preview of coming attractions;
A report from the discussion of Dubliners at the Hatchards Classics Book Club last night;
And our sixteenth discussion of The Old Curiosity Shop – with a note on a disfigured figurehead;
This newsletter may be too long for your email inbox. If so, click ‘View entire message’ at the bottom to see the full newsletter – or visit Substack.
The Call of the Wild (0 of 2)
‘Buck did not read the newspapers, or he would have known that trouble was brewing, not alone for himself, but for every tidewater dog, strong of muscle and with warm, long hair, from Puget Sound to San Diego.’
Today we start reading Jack London’s first and greatest novel, The Call of the Wild. All the details of our read-along can be found here.
Before we begin, here is a little background on the Klondike Gold Rush of 1897.
In August 1896, an American prospector called George Carmack was looking for gold in the Klondike region of the Yukon with two local Tagish men, Skookum Jim and Tagish Charlie. They discovered huge quantities of gold on Rabbit Creek.
Word spread quickly in the Yukon valley and prospectors from nearby towns descended on the area, registering mining claims along Rabbit Creek and other creeks nearby and starting to turn up incredible seams of gold. Rabbit Creek was renamed Bonanza Creek – others were named Eldorado and Too-Much Gold Creek.
In June 1897, the ports unfroze and ships headed south to Seattle and San Francisco with news of the discovery and then the real rush began the following month.
It’s estimated that 100,000 prospectors attempted to reach the Klondike Region between 1897 and 1899. Dawson City, at the confluence of the Yukon and the Klondike rivers, grew from 500 inhabitants in 1896 to 17,000 by the summer of 1898.
The number of prospectors provided opportunities for quick-witted businessmen to set up saloons and other services. One German immigrant, for example, who had arrived in the USA in 1885, travelled to the Yukon in 1898 and made a fortune running the White Horse Inn, a restaurant and brothel for miners. His name was Friedrich Trump and his grandson, of course, would later become President.
Of the thousands of prospectors who travelled to the area, only a few hundred became rich – and many of those went on to lose their fortunes seeking ever richer seams of gold. By the summer of 1899, most of the profitable land had been claimed, gold was was discovered elsewhere in western Alaska and the press began to lose interest in the rush; the Klondike boom towns began to dwindle.
Today the legacy of the Klondike Gold Rush is best preserved in three cultural artefacts: the remarkable images captured by the Swedish photographer E. A. Hegg, Charlie Chaplin’s wonderful film The Gold Rush (1925), which was partly inspired by Hegg’s photographs, and The Call of the Wild by Jack London.
I look forward to discussing Chapters 1-4 next Friday 16th January.
Here are links to our previous Call of the Wild posts:
The Schedule (12 December)
Jack London (2 January)
These weekly read-along discussions of The Call of the Wild will be available to paid subscribers only. More details here.
If you – or anyone you know – would like to join this or future read-alongs, but can’t afford a paid subscription, just let me know and I’ll send a gift subscription.
February’s read-along – The Age of Innocence
This week I’m also delighted to be announcing our monthly read-along for February. Please join me next month to read Edith Wharton’s most famous novel, The Age of Innocence.
What is it?
In Gilded Age New York, Newland Archer is engaged to the impeccable May Welland, but his relationship and his world view are upended when May’s enigmatic cousin, the Countess Ellen Olenska, returns from Europe, fleeing her brutish husband.
Why are we reading it?
The Age of Innocence is a heart-breaking love story, perfect for Valentine’s Day. It won the Pulitzer Prize in 1921, establishing Wharton – in the judges’ words – as the ‘American First Lady of Letters’.
Ellen Olenska is an iconic heroine and will also make for an interesting contrast with two other famous characters from American fiction that we’re discussing this year: Buck in The Call of the Wild, our January read-along, and Holden Caulfield in The Catcher in the Rye, which we’ll be reading in March.
And for long-term subscribers, there will be a fascinating comparison with Anna Karenina. Both novels are set in the early 1870s: as we finish our 14-month read-along of Anna Karenina, it will be intriguing to compare two unforgettable female characters, one living in Moscow and one in New York, both separated from their husbands and both attempting to navigate the implacable and sometimes hostile environment of society’s uppermost echelons.
Which edition should I read?
Edith Whartons’s books are out of copyright, so there are lots of editions to choose from, including free versions of the text online, like this one.
I will be reading the Oxford World’s Classics edition with a 2006 introduction by Stephen Orgel.
How will we read it?
The Age of Innocence is 250 pages (in my edition) and comprises two ‘books’ with 34 chapters in total.
I suggest we read it over four weeks:
We’ll start reading on Friday 30th January.
On Friday 6th February we’ll discuss Chapters 1-10;
On Friday 13th February we’ll discuss Chapters 11-18;
On Friday 20th February we’ll discuss Chapters 19-26;
And on Friday 27th February we’ll discuss Chapters 27-34.
Then, if you’re near London, you’d be very welcome to book a ticket for our discussion of The Age of Innocence at the Hatchards Classics Book Club on Thursday 5th March.
We meet downstairs at Hatchards (187 Piccadilly) on the first Thursday of every month at 6.30pm – tickets cost £5 with a free Hatchards Reward Card and include a glass (or two) of wine. These book club events are not live-streamed, but afterwards I post a report of our discussion here on Substack.
Our weekly read-along discussions of The Age of Innocence will be for paid subscribers only. More details here.
If you – or anyone you know – would like to join this or future read-alongs, but can’t afford a paid subscription, just let me know and I’ll send a gift subscription.
If you buy a copy of The Age of Innocence through Bookshop.org (UK) or Bookshop.org (US), Read the Classics will earn a commission from your purchase. Thank you in advance for your support!
Happy Birthday Simone de Beauvoir
In other news, today was Simone de Beauvoir’s birthday.
Simone-Lucie-Ernestine-Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir was born above the Café de la Rotonde in Montparnasse, Paris. As a child she considered becoming a nun, but instead became an existential philosopher, political activist and pioneering feminist author.
She met Jean-Paul Sartre at the Sorbonne: in the École Normale Supérieure agrégation in philosophy he came top, she came a close second, and they subsequently became lifelong ‘soul partners’. She described her relationship with Sartre as the ‘one undoubted success in my life’. De Beauvoir qualified as a teacher alongside Claude Lévi-Strauss and taught at lycées in Marseille, Rouen and eventually Paris, before dedicating herself to writing.
She is best remembered today for her landmark work of feminist non-fiction, The Second Sex (1949) as well as her multi-volume autobiography and her novels. Her debut novel – L’Invitée (She Came to Stay) – was inspired by a ménage à trois between her, Sartre and one of her female students – and Les Mandarins won the Prix Goncourt in 1954.
She Came to Stay by Simone de Beauvoir (1943)
It was unthinkable that Pierre and Françoise should ever tire of each other. And yet, both talented and restless, they constantly feel the need for new sensations, new people. Because of this they bring the young, beautiful and irresponsible Xavière into their life who, determined to take Pierre for herself, drives a wedge between them, with unforeseeable, disastrous consequences . . .
Written as an act of revenge against the 17 year-old who came between her and Jean-Paul Sartre, She Came to Stay is a lacerating study of a young, naive couple in love and the usurping woman who comes between them.
[UK] Harper Perennial Modern Classics | 434 pages | translated by Yvonne Moyse & Roger Senhouse
[US] W. W. Norton & Co | 408 pages | translated by Yvonne Moyse & Roger Senhouse
What’s new this week?
The big news in UK classics publishing at the start of this year is that Thomas Mann died in 1955, which means his legal term of copyright ended on 1 January 2026.
Until last week, Mann’s major works were only published by Vintage Classics in the UK, but now it’s a free-for-all: Oxford World’s Classics brought out their editions yesterday, Pushkin Press are publishing next week and the Penguin Classics editions are coming out in March this year.
In other news, yesterday also saw the publication of a new Raffles selection and the first English translation of a chilling 1950s German novella.
Killing Stella by Marlen Haushofer (1958)
Stella is a friend’s nineteen-year-old daughter who has come to live with Anna and her family. Unloved and neglected, Stella’s presence disturbs the already tense and tumultuous household. She lodges uncomfortably in their lives, whilst Anna struggles to bring warmth and welcome to the home. Her son continues to be gloomy and her daughter oblivious. Meanwhile Richard, Anna’s adulterous husband, pretends not to notice Stella at all . . .
[UK] Vintage Classics | 96 pages | translated by Shaun Whiteside
[US] New Directions | 80 pages | translated by Shaun Whiteside
Raffles, Gentleman Thief by E. W. Hornung (1899-1905)
Dashing man about town, first-class cricketer and master burglar: Raffles is the ultimate gentleman thief. Here we find the debonair rogue cracking a jeweller’s safe on Bond Street, stealing from the nouveau riche, spiriting away a priceless pearl, outwitting the law at every turn – and, of course, bowling like a demon – all with the assistance of his plucky sidekick Bunny Manders. This new selection of Ernest Hornung’s much-loved crime stories is taken from his three Raffles collections, The Amateur Cracksman, The Black Mask and A Thief in the Night.
[UK] Penguin Classics | 320 pages
The book descriptions above are taken from the publishers’ online blurbs.
Coming Attractions
For a sneak preview of our upcoming monthly read-alongs, you can take a peak here.
Over the course of 2026, we are reading The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky: twelve volumes over twelve months, January to December.
Join us! We’re starting by discussing Book One: The Story of a Family (32 pages) on Friday 23 January, so there’s plenty of time to catch up. All our Brothers Karamazov posts will be gathered here – and here is the full reading schedule.
And a reminder that all the Brothers Karamazov posts and discussions will be accessible to all subscribers for free! But if you would like to contribute to the group discussion, you will need a paid subscription.
As ever, if you – or anyone you know – can’t afford a paid subscription, just let me know and I’ll send a gift subscription.
And if you’re enjoying our read-alongs, why not treat yourself to the Hatchards Classic Book Club annual book subscription?
You (or a friend) can receive all the books we read each month here on Read the Classics, beautifully gift-wrapped and delivered to your door, anywhere in the world, as well as a year’s complimentary subscription to Read the Classics, so you can choose to read along with us, if you wish.
To find out more, follow this link or email Hatchards directly: subscriptions@hatchards.co.uk
Dubliners Book Club
Talking of Hatchards, last night the bookshop hosted the Classics Book Club for an excellent discussion of Dubliners. Sadly, I couldn’t make it myself because of a recent small addition to my family, but the conversation was brilliantly helmed by the fabulous Emily Rhodes, who runs Emily’s Walking Book Club (highly recommended). Here is Emily’s summary of the evening:
And here are links to all our Dubliners posts:
The Schedule (7 November)
James Joyce (21 November)
0. The arrangement of the stories (28 November)
1. ‘The Sisters’, ‘An Encounter’, ‘Araby’, ‘Eveline’, ‘After the Races’ & ‘Two Gallants’ – and a walking route (5 December)
2. ‘The Boarding House’, ‘A Little Cloud’, ‘Counterparts’, ‘Clay’ & ‘A Painful Case’ – and the saucer game (12 December)
3. ‘Ivy Day in the Committee Room’, ‘A Mother’ & ‘Grace’ – and Ivy Day (19 December)
4. ‘The Dead’ – Thomas Moore and John Huston (2 January)
If you would like to come to our next book club discussion, you’d be very welcome! We will be discussing Jack London’s The Call of the Wild on Thursday 5th February.
We meet downstairs at Hatchards (187 Piccadilly, London) on the first Thursday of every month at 6.30pm – tickets cost £5 with a free Hatchards Reward Card and include a glass (or two) of wine.
The Old Curiosity Shop (16 of 18)
This month we’ve read five issues of Dickens’s Master Humphrey’s Clock – our next instalment of The Old Curiosity Shop. Here are my thoughts:
I’d love to hear yours!
This month’s instalment included one of the weirdest scenes in the book so far: Quilp’s unhinged attack on an old ship’s figurehead, which he buys and sets up in his counting-house for the express purpose of destroying it, simply because it bears a resemblance to Kit Nubbles. It is
a great, goggle-eyed, blunt-nosed figure-head of some old ship, which was reared up against the wall in a corner near the stove, looking like a goblin or hideous idol whom the dwarf worshipped.
This scene displays Quilp at his most irrational and unhuman – and, perhaps unsurprisingly, it has been a favourite among illustrators. Phiz created the memorable image above for the original publication in Master Humphrey’s Clock – and three more versions followed. I particularly Quilp and Brass’s attitudes in Green’s version – and the figurehead in Furniss’s illustration is terrifying.
Dickens explains that the figurehead’s provenance:
A mass of timber on its head, carved into the dim and distant semblance of a cocked hat, together with a representation of a star on the left breast and epaulettes on the shoulders, denoted that it was intended for the effigy of some famous admiral; but without those helps, any observer might have supposed it the authentic portrait of a distinguished merman, or great sea-monster.
This description – and Phiz’s illustration – suggest that the figure-head originally depicted Admiral Lord Nelson, a national hero in nineteenth-century Britain, of course, after his famous victory and death at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805.
Nelson would have been on Dickens’s mind in December 1840 – and on the minds of his London readers – because construction of Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square had begun in September 1840, just three months earlier. The famous landmark was not completed until November 1843.
As Professor Philip Allingham says in this excellent Victorian Web piece, the reference to Nelson also implies the admiral’s famous dictum, ‘England expects every man to do his duty’, thus contrasting the dutiful Kit with the selfish and malicious dwarf.
Allingham interprets Quilp’s destructive glee as a form of psychological transference:
[Quilp] has assigned to the inanimate wooden figure his revulsion for Kit’s good looks, morality, and fidelity, of his tendency to place the welfare of others (such as his mother and little Jacob) above his own. Legally, Quilp would be taken up for assault and battery if he were to assail the lad (who might acquit himself against his attacker), but he can displace his feelings of hostility and aggression with perfect impunity (indeed, with impish delight) by attacking a lifeless figure whom he identifies as bearing some resemblance to Kit.
I look forward to reading the next seven chapters of The Old Curiosity Shop and discussing them in a month’s time. On Friday 6 February, we’ll discuss Chapters 66-72 – our penultimate instalment.
These chapters were originally published in four weekly issues of Master Humphrey’s Clock as follows:
No.41 (9 January) Chapter 66
No.42 (16 January) Chapters 67-68
No.43 (23 January) Chapters 69-70
No.44 (30 January) Chapters 71-72
Here are links to our previous Old Curiosity Shop posts:
The Schedule (14 March 2025)
Charles Dickens (28 March)
0. Forster’s Life of Dickens (4 April)
1. Master Humphrey’s Clock No.1 – and Gog and Magog (11 April)
2. Master Humphrey’s Clock No.2 – and G. K. Chesterton (18 April)
3. Master Humphrey’s Clock No.3 – and Edgar Allan Poe (25 April)
4. Master Humphrey’s Clock No.4 – and the Old Curiosity Shop (2 May)
6. Master Humphrey’s Clock No.6 – and St. Dunstan-in-the-West (16 May)
7. Master Humphrey’s Clock No.7 – and Jack Bamber’s Tale (23 May)
9. Chapters 6-8 – and Master Humphrey, from His Clock-Side in the Chimney Corner (20 June)
10. Chapters 9-16 – and Punch and Judy (18 July)
11. Chapters 17-24 – and Old Giants and Dwarfs (15 August)
12. Chapters 25-32 – and Jarley’s Wax-Work (12 September)
13. Chapters 33-39 – and Sampson and Sally Brass (10 October)
14. Chapters 40-47 – and the Black Country (7 November)
15. Chapters 48-55 – and Daniel Maclise (5 December)
Buy a copy of any of the books above through Bookshop.org (UK) or Bookshop.org (US) and Read the Classics will earn a commission from your purchase. Thank you in advance for your support!
This week’s edition is such a treasure chest, I love how many different doors it opens. I keep dipping in and out of the sections and enjoying each one for different reasons.
I wish I could join all the read-alongs (the selection is honestly fabulous), but my January heart is firmly with The Call of the Wild. I have this beautiful old Reader’s Digest copy that’s been sitting unread on my shelf for years, and cracking it open now feels strangely perfect.
I must have read it 20+ years ago. I remember the atmosphere, that immersive feeling, but almost none of the details, so it’s going to be a real rediscovery. And with the snow coming down here in Zurich, it feels like the ideal January companion. Can’t wait to start this weekend. ❄️📚
I love when one work we're reading sheds light on another work we're reading; when one writer unintentionally informs another across space and time. And this week, I can't help seeing the similiarities between Charles Dickens and Henry Eliot.
In the last installment, Dickens asked us to invest in Nell's story more deeply than ever. Dickens' narrative elicited an emotional reaction, an attachment from the reader. Ending the installment with Nell peering into the blackness of the well left the reader with a depth of unresolved emotion.
In his own last installment, Eliot pulled the listener in with his reading of a scene between a father and a newborn child that's as touchingly written as any in literature. Eliot's poignant interpretation of that moment produced a deeply felt emotional attachment, too.
In this latest installment, Dickens lets multiple characters run wild. They ping-ping-ping against each other, producing chapters full of action and giving the reader something new and exciting at every turn.
In his own latest installment, Eliot gives readers a ping-ping-ping of his own with a jeweller's safe chock-full of more subjects than ever, with the promise of something new and exciting at every turn.
Yet, in a quiet moment of mastery, Eliot pauses the liveliness--"because of a recent small addition to my family."
Congratulations, Henry.