“FIRST FRIEND”, Rudyard Kipling called the dog. But I wonder just how friendly those dogs, fresh from the wild, really were? Thousands of years later they've become pets. If you have a dog these days, you never need be alone, and you're always the boss. But have you ever wondered what it would be like if your faithful, four-legged Fido came back at the head of the pack, with his lips curled back and a growl in his throat, and fresh meat on his mind? Would he sit and beg on command then?

No dog was ever so stern, loyal and obedient as Buck, and yet none so fierce and independent either. He starts off as a soft pet and then goes back in time, through being a working dog until in the end he really is a guest in from the wilderness. There never was a dog like him, and probably never will be, either. None of mine would ever even do as they were told, let alone risk their lives for me. If I hadn't known how to operate the tin opener they'd have been off tomorrow. In the end, I think John Thornton, Buck's last owner, was simply lucky to have come across such a glorious beast. They were more a partnership than owner and dog, and in fact it is Buck who is the stronger of the two. Thornton is just one more master keeping him from his true destiny, as pack leader of wild wolves, running with his wild brothers. It is only when the last man is gone that Buck can truly become himself.

This is a romance about the wild places. In one sense, it's the wilderness that is the true hero of the book. I think it is that side of it that appeals to me - the idea of a beautiful world with no people in it, unspoilt and perfect, where only the truly glorious can survive. It seems only right that Thornton was destroyed by the place he was trying to plunder, while Buck rises to the occasion by returning to the source of his strength and becoming a part of it.

These days we want to make our mark in the wilderness in a different way - by managing it and making it suitable for wildlife, rather than just leaving it to be claimed by whatever and whoever can survive there. But for anyone such as myself who loves nature, there is something magnetic in the idea that nature will come back to claim its own - covering the towns with creepers and breaking up the roads and pavements with trees, pulling the houses back into the soil, while the animals we call pets break down their fences and start to roam free again. The beautiful, dangerous wilderness! The Call of the Wild is a reminder of an age before mass extinctions, before climate change, when Man had not yet become such a force of nature himself and there was a real sense that one day you might wake up and find that the roads would have crumbled under the roots of trees, there would be wild beasts closing in on your garden, and “first friend”, sitting by the hearth, would turn and bare his teeth at you, just as his ancestors once used to do.

Introduction to the Puffin Classics edition of The Call of the Wild © Melvin Burgess 2008

Melvin Burgess is the author of the controversial teen books Doing It, Junk and Sara's Face

Factfile

Jack London grew up in a poor family in California and did a variety of jobs, including selling newspapers, hunting seals in the Pacific and gold prospecting in Canada.

After publishing The Call of the Wild in 1903 he became a celebrity, taking up the causes of socialism and women's suffrage.

Buck, the canine hero, is half St Bernard and half shepherd dog. He begins life as a pet but is later taken to the freezing Yukon, where he meets huskies and wolves.

Other famous fictional dogs include Pongo and Missis in The Hundred and One Dalmatians, by Dodie Smith, Timmy in Enid Blyton's Famous Five series and Tintin's faithful terrier Snowy, created by Hergé.

Times Recommends

• The 100 Best Books of the Decade
• The Times picks the 50 best paperbacks of 2009
• The conversation: James Ellroy