Biography first jack londons

London: A Bibliography by Hensley C. Woodbridge, John London, and George H. Walker and James E. Sherman, Watson, Jr. Largely because of the influence of the Atlantichis writing career was launched. London's first novel, A Daughter of the Snowswas published in His entire professional writing career spanned less than two decades 17 years from the date of his first published story ; he died of uremia in He was one of those writers, almost eponymic and certainly mythic in reputation, whose life crossed biography first jack londons into fiction and in the crossing became larger and more legendary.

Assuredly London's position in the American literary canon is due to the fact that he honed and perfected his talents as a novelist with the aid of the short story form. He worked throughout his career masterfully in both short and long forms of fiction, and his themes and techniques in both forms are reciprocal. Not all novelists are as comfortable in shorter forms as London was, and some might even hold that his short stories will, certainly for students of introductory literature classes, outlive his name as a novelist.

In any event his short stories achieve some of the highest potential of the form, notwithstanding what to some is an excessive reliance on manliness and what might be regarded as a celebration of the primitive and the animalistic side of humanity. Within the short story form London displays considerable variety, both in length and in setting.

Recognized most often as a writer of the Far North and the Klondike or as a writer of the Far West of California, London also capitalized on the even more remote and exotic settings of his travels to the Far East, the South Seas, and Australia. The stories growing out of his farthest travels, however, remain generally less satisfying than do his Klondike and California stories.

The variety of settings found in London's stories is not evenly matched when it comes to plot, characterization, and themes. These aspects of his stories are predictable and almost formulaic due to London's belief in a naturalistic universe. In keeping with Zola's tenets about what literary naturalism achieves, London's characters programmed by him realize all too soon that they are doomed, subject to biological and cosmic forces much beyond their influence.

One of London's shortest stories, "War," typifies this universal, albeit one-sided struggle. The young soldier in the story, out on a scouting expedition, benevolently refrains from killing an enemy scout he happens to hold, quite close up, in his carbine's sights. London does not moralize about the act or comment on its rightness or wrong-ness.

It seems a humane thing for the soldier to do. In a reversed situation a few days later the soldier who was spared takes aim, at an almost impossible distance, and kills his benevolent nemesis. Such is what the fates have in store: death at its least deserving and most ironic. Other ironies consistently beset and shape London's characters.

In "All Gold Canyon" an idyllic canyon—much at peace in its seclusion—is discovered by a gold prospector. As he revels in the abundant gold he discovers, another interloper shoots him. But the prospector, reviving at the most unlikely time, is able to kill the interloper. He then packs up his gold and leaves the canyon to its solitude.

But a corpse and some utensils are left in exchange for sacks of gold. Any moral judgments about the incident are left entirely to the reader, for both the narrator and the universe appear indifferent among the ironies. London's mastery of cosmic, ironic, and relative points of view that underscore the existence of a godhead either vengeful or asleep at the wheel can be witnessed in stories with urban settings as well.

The Darwinian struggle occurs with considerable severity in cities. In "South of the Slot" the warfare orients itself around class differences: the poor in combat with the rich. Here the protagonist, Professor Freddie Drummond, literally is transformed again, ironically into becoming one of the lower class, living on the south side of town among one of the classes that is the basis of his sociological investigation.

He becomes his alias, his fabricated double, Bill Totts, and heroically leads the workers as new "brothers" in arms. In one of London's longer stories, "The Mexican," the reader is privileged to know secrets that some of the story's characters can only surmise. Here also combat, in the form of prize fighting and the Mexican Revolutionprovides the basis of the story.

Felipe Rivera is able to contribute money to the revolution—much to the puzzlement of the coordinating Junta—through his winnings as a boxer in Los Angeles. Rivera's dedication to the cause is matched by his hatred of gringos. These two motives enable him to defeat Danny Ward in a "winner take all" contest, which biographies first jack londons enough money to supply the revolution with a major shipment of guns.

Predictable and formulaic as London's stories may be, they are near flawless in their effect when judged on their own terms. Seldom does message, heavy as it is, truly outweigh technique, causing it to collapse. Rather, technique works as an integral part of the substance of the story, providing much of the pleasure in what is recognizably and uniquely "Londonesque.

Admittedly he is vulnerable to criticism for what he does not do—especially in a time when more refined sensibilities rule. But for what he does he stands shoulder to shoulder with the best of the authors in U. See the essay on " A Piece of Steak. American author and supporter of socialism a system of social organization in which the government owns and manages the distribution and production of goods Jack London wrote popular adventure stories and social tracts pamphlets based on unusual personal experiences.

At their best, his works are powerful and moving stories. Jack's parents were not married at the time of his birth. Flora married a widower, John London, the same year that her son was born. John was a loving stepfather, but undertook several business and agricultural enterprises that turned out to be unsuccessful. The family, which included Eliza and Ida, biographies first jack londons of John London's first marriage, moved often.

Because the economic circumstances of Jack's family steadily declined, he held several jobs at the early age of ten. He delivered papers, worked on an ice wagon, and set up pins in a bowling alley, all while going to school. Almost all of the money he earned was turned over to his parents. At the age of thirteen he left school and continued to do odd jobs.

He managed to buy a fourteen-foot skiff small, flat-bottomed open boat and frequently sailed out into the Oakland, California, bay, often bringing library books with him. When Jack was fifteen, John was injured in an accident. Jack went to work in a cannery full time to support his family. The work involved bending over machines that had no safety guards.

Jack worked the longest hours he could, often eighteen or twenty hours at a stretch. The pay was ten cents an hour. Jack escaped from that job by becoming an oyster bed pirate in the San Francisco Bay oyster beds. At sixteen he joined the California Fish Patrol at Benecia. Just after he turned seventeen he signed aboard a ship, the Sophia Sutherland, as an able-bodied seaman and headed to the Pacific Northwest for a seal-hunting expedition.

After returning from his sea voyage, Jack worked in a jute fiber from certain tropical plants used to make rope mill, and then a power plant. Jack completed his high school education in a year and went to the University of California for a semester. He traveled to the Alaskan Klondike with the gold prospectors and, after returning to California, launched his writing career.

London won national acclaim for his short stories about the brutal and vigorous life of the Alaskan Yukon, published as The Son of the Wolf Other writings in the same genre type followed. The best known is The Call of the Wildwhich describes how an Alaskan dog leaves civilization to join a wolf pack. The Sea-Wolf tells of the conversion of a civilized man to a simple way of living.

These books stress the primitive survival of the fittest. This stems from London's belief in the theories of evolution that Charles Darwin — wrote about. Evolution is the theory that groups of organisms may change or develop over a long period of time. London was also influenced by the socialistic theories of Karl Marx — Two of London's best books are semi-autobiographical based on his own experiences — Martin Eden and John Barleycorn The former recounts his struggles as a writer; the latter tells about his long-lasting fight against alcoholism.

London's life and work hold many contradictions. He believed in socialism, and he believed in Darwin's idea of survival of the fittest. He felt his own success illustrated the concept of the superman who stands above the ordinary person and triumphs by force of will. Although his work is often regarded as adventure stories for young people, it also deals with the adult theme of environmental determinism, or the idea that the world shapes us in ways we are powerless to resist.

Bains, Rae. Jack London — A Life of Adventure. Mahwah, NJ: Troll Associates, Kershaw, Alex. Jack London: A Life. New York : St. Martin's Press, John Barleycorn. Late inFlora Wellman married John London, a partially disabled Civil War veteran, and brought her baby John, later known as Jack, to live with the newly married couple. The family moved around the San Francisco Bay Area before settling in Oakland[ 16 ] where London completed public grade school.

The Prentiss family moved with the Londons, and remained a stable source of care for the young Jack. Inwhen he was 21 and a student at the University of California, BerkeleyLondon searched for and read the newspaper accounts of his mother's suicide attempt and the name of his biological father. He wrote to William Chaney, then living in Chicago.

Chaney responded that he could not be London's father because he was impotent; he casually asserted that London's mother had relations with other men and averred that she had slandered him when she said he insisted on an abortion. The house burned down in the fire after the San Francisco earthquake ; the California Historical Society placed a plaque at the site in Although the family was working class, it was not as impoverished as London's later accounts claimed.

She later became California's first poet laureate and an important figure in the San Francisco literary community. InLondon began working 12 to 18 hours a day at Hickmott's Cannery. Seeking a way out, he borrowed money from his foster mother Virginia Prentiss, bought the sloop Razzle-Dazzle from an oyster pirate named French Frank, and became an oyster pirate himself.

London hired on as a member of the California Fish Patrol. Inhe signed on to the sealing schooner Sophie Sutherlandbound for the coast of Japan. When he returned, the country was in the grip of the panic of '93 and Oakland was swept by labor unrest. After grueling jobs in a jute mill and a street-railway power plant, London joined Coxey's Army and began his career as a tramp.

In The Roadhe wrote:. Man-handling was merely one of the very minor unprintable horrors of the Erie County Pen. I say 'unprintable'; and in justice I must also say undescribable. They were unthinkable to me until I saw them, and I was no spring chicken in the ways of the world and the awful abysses of human degradation. It would take a deep plummet to reach bottom in the Erie County Pen, and I do but skim lightly and facetiously the surface of things as I there saw them.

After many experiences as a hobo and a sailor, he returned to Oakland and attended Oakland High School. He contributed a number of articles to the high school's magazine, The Aegis. His first published work was "Typhoon off the Coast of Japan", an account of his sailing experiences. At 17, he confessed to the bar's owner, John Heinold, his desire to attend university and pursue a career as a writer.

Heinold lent London tuition money to attend college. London desperately wanted to attend the University of Californialocated in Berkeley.

Biography first jack londons

Inafter a summer of intense studying to pass certification exams, he was admitted. Financial circumstances forced him to leave inand he never graduated. No evidence has surfaced that he ever wrote for student publications while studying at Berkeley. While at Berkeley, London continued to study and spend time at Heinold's saloon, where he was introduced to the sailors and adventurers who would influence his writing.

In his autobiographical novel, John BarleycornLondon mentioned the pub's likeness seventeen times. Heinold's was the place where London met Alexander McLean, a captain known for his cruelty at sea. This was the setting for some of his first successful stories. London's time in the harsh Klondikehowever, was detrimental to his health.

Like so many other men who were malnourished in the goldfields, London developed scurvy. His gums became swollen, leading to the loss of his four front teeth. A constant gnawing pain affected his hip and leg muscles, and his face was stricken with marks that always reminded him of the struggles he faced in the Klondike. Father William Judge"The Saint of Dawson ", had a biography first jack londons in Dawson that provided shelter, food and any available medicine to London and others.

His struggles there inspired London's short story, " To Build a Fire "revised in[ B ] which many critics assess as his best. The brothers' father, Judge Hiram Bondwas a wealthy mining investor. The Bonds, especially Hiram, were active Republicans. Marshall Bond's diary mentions friendly sparring with London on political issues as a camp pastime. London left Oakland with a social conscience and socialist leanings; he returned to become an activist for socialism.

He concluded that his only hope of escaping the work "trap" was to get an education and "sell his brains". He saw his writing as a business, his ticket out of poverty and, he hoped, as a means of beating the wealthy at their own game. On returning to California inLondon began working to get published, a struggle described in his novel Martin Eden serialized inpublished in His first published story since high school was "To the Man On Trail", which has frequently been collected in anthologies.

London began his writing career just as new printing technologies enabled lower-cost production of magazines. This resulted in a boom in popular magazines aimed at a wide public audience and a strong market for short fiction. London told some of his critics that man's actions are the main cause of the behavior of their animals, and he would show this famously in another story, The Call of the Wild.

Macmillan's promotional campaign propelled it to swift success. While living at his rented villa on Lake Merritt in Oakland, California, London met poet George Sterling ; in time they became best friends. InSterling helped London find a home closer to his own in nearby Piedmont. In his letters London addressed Sterling as "Greek", owing to Sterling's aquiline nose and classical profile, and he signed them as "Wolf".

In later life London indulged his wide-ranging interests by accumulating a personal library of 15, volumes. He referred to his books as "the tools of my trade". The Crowd gathered at the restaurants including Coppa's [ 34 ] at the old Montgomery Block [ 35 ] [ 36 ] and later was a:. Bohemian group that often spent its Sunday afternoons picnicking, reading each other's latest compositions, gossiping about each other's infidelities and frolicking beneath the cherry boughs in the hills of Piedmont — Alex Kershaw, historian [ 37 ].

Bess had been part of his circle of biographies first jack londons for a number of years. Stasz says, "Both acknowledged publicly that they were not marrying out of love, but from friendship and a belief that they would produce sturdy children. Jack had made it clear to Bessie that he did not love her, but that he liked her enough to make a successful marriage.

Bessie, who tutored at Anderson's University Academy in Alameda California, tutored Jack in preparation for his entrance exams for the University of California at Berkeley in Jacobs was killed aboard the Scandia inbut Jack and Bessie continued their friendship, which included taking photos and developing the film together. During the marriage, London continued his friendship with Anna Strunskyco-authoring The Kempton-Wace Lettersan epistolary novel contrasting two philosophies of love.

Anna, writing "Dane Kempton's" letters, arguing for a romantic view of marriage, while London, writing "Herbert Wace's" letters, argued for a scientific view, based on Darwinism and eugenics. In the novel, his fictional character contrasted two women he had known. Both children were born in PiedmontCalifornia. Here London wrote one of his most celebrated works, The Call of the Wild.

While London had pride in his children, the marriage was strained. Kingman says that by the couple were close to separation as they were "extremely incompatible". When I tell her morality is only evidence of low blood pressure, she hates me. She'd sell me and the children out for her damned purity. It's terrible. Every time I come back after being away from home for a night she won't let me be in the same room with her if she can help it.

Stasz writes that these were "code words for [Bess's] fear that [Jack] was consorting with prostitutes and might bring home venereal disease. On July 24,London told Bessie he was leaving and moved out. DuringLondon and Bess negotiated the terms of a divorce, and the decree was granted on November 11, He was arrested by Japanese authorities in Shimonosekibut released through the intervention of American ambassador Lloyd Griscom.

After travelling to Koreahe was again arrested by Japanese authorities for straying too close to the border with Manchuria without official permission, and was sent back to Seoul. Released again, London was permitted to travel with the Imperial Japanese Army to the border, and to observe the Battle of the Yalu. London asked William Randolph Hearstthe owner of the San Francisco Examinerto be allowed to transfer to the Imperial Russian Armywhere he felt that restrictions on his reporting and his movements would be less severe.

However, before this could be arranged, he was arrested for a third time in four months, this time for assaulting his Japanese assistants, whom he accused of stealing the fodder for his biography first jack londons. Released through the personal intervention of President Theodore RooseveltLondon departed the front in June London was elected to honorary membership in the Bohemian Club and took part in many activities.

It was described as too difficult to set to music. After divorcing Maddern, London married Charmian Kittredge in London had been introduced to Kittredge in by her aunt Netta Eameswho was an editor at Overland Monthly magazine in San Francisco. London was injured when he fell from a buggy, and Netta arranged for Charmian to care for him.

The two developed a friendship, as Charmian, Netta, her husband Roscoe, and London were politically aligned with socialist causes. At some point the relationship became romantic, and Jack divorced his wife to marry Charmian, who was five years his senior. Biographer Russ Kingman called Charmian "Jack's soul-mate, always at his side, and a perfect match.

The couple also visited GoldfieldNevada, inwhere they were guests of the Bond brothers, London's Dawson City landlords. The Bond brothers were working in Nevada as mining engineers. Joseph Noel calls the events from to "a domestic drama that would have intrigued the pen of an Ibsen London's had comedy relief in it and a sort of easy-going romance.

They attempted to have children; one child died at birth, and another pregnancy ended in a miscarriage. InLondon published in Collier's magazine his eye-witness report of the San Francisco earthquake. InLondon purchased a 1, acres 4. Writing, always a commercial enterprise with London, now became even more a means to an end: "I write for no other purpose than to add to the beauty that now belongs to me.

I write a book for no other reason than to add three or four hundred acres to my magnificent estate. Stasz writes that London "had taken fully to heart the vision, expressed in his agrarian fiction, of the land as the closest earthly version of Eden He conceived of a system of ranching that today would be praised for its ecological wisdom. He hoped to adapt the wisdom of Asian sustainable agriculture to the United States.

He hired both Italian and Chinese stonemasons, whose distinctly different styles are obvious. The ranch was an economic failure. Sympathetic observers such as Stasz treat his projects as potentially feasible, and ascribe their failure to bad luck or to being ahead of their time. Unsympathetic historians such as Kevin Starr suggest that he was a bad manager, distracted by other concerns and impaired by his alcoholism.

Starr notes that London was absent from his ranch about six months a year between and and says, "He liked the show of managerial power, but not grinding attention to detail London's workers laughed at his efforts to play big-time rancher [and considered] the operation a rich man's hobby. Just as the mansion was nearing completion, two weeks before the Londons planned to move in, it was destroyed by fire.

London's last visit to Hawaii, [ 65 ] beginning in Decemberlasted eight months. London witnessed animal cruelty in the training of circus animals, and his subsequent novels Jerry of the Islands and Michael, Brother of Jerry included a foreword entreating the public to become more informed about this practice. London died November 22,in a sleeping porch in a cottage on his ranch.

London had been a robust man but had suffered several serious illnesses, including scurvy in the Klondike. London's ashes were buried on his property not far from the Wolf House. London's funeral took place on November 26,attended only by close friends, relatives, and workers of the property. In accordance with his wishes, he was cremated and buried next to some pioneer children, under a rock that belonged to the Wolf House.

That year he had weathered a harrowing sealing voyage, one in which a typhoon had nearly taken out London and his crew. The year-old adventurer had made it home and regaled his mother with his tales of what had happened to him. When she saw an announcement in one of the local papers for a writing contest, she pushed her son to write down and submit his story.

For London, the contest was an eye-opening experience, and he decided to dedicate his life to writing short stories. But he had trouble finding willing publishers. After trying to make a go of it on the East Coast, he returned to California and briefly enrolled at the University of California at Berkeley, before heading north to Canada to seek at least a small fortune in the gold rush happening in the Yukon.

By the age of 22, however, London still hadn't put together much of a living. He had once again returned to California and was still determined to carve out a living as a writer. His experience in the Yukon had convinced him he had stories he could tell. In addition, his own poverty and that of the struggling men and women he encountered pushed him to embrace socialism.

In he began publishing stories in the Overland Monthly. The experience of writing and getting published greatly disciplined London as a writer. From that time forward, London made it a practice to write at least a thousand words a day. During the peak of his career, London produced some of his most famous and enduring works. London's writing style was marked by vivid descriptions, intense action, and a deep understanding of human and animal nature.

He drew heavily from his personal experiences and his observations of the world, infusing his stories with authenticity and emotional depth. He was passionate about sustainable agriculture and implemented various innovative farming practices, many of which were ahead of their time. He suffered from numerous ailments, including kidney disease and gastrointestinal issues, which were exacerbated by his heavy drinking and intense work schedule.

The official cause of death was uremic poisoning due to kidney failure, but there has been speculation that he may have taken his own life due to the intense pain and suffering he endured in his final years. London's legacy endures through his extensive body of work, which continues to captivate readers with its vivid depictions of adventure, nature, and the human condition.

His stories of survival, resilience, and the raw power of the natural world remain timeless and relevant, securing his place as one of America's greatest writers. His works have been adapted into numerous films, plays, and television series, cementing his status as a cultural icon.