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FIRST PRINTING

Jack London

John Griffith London was born out of wedlock on January 12,1876, in San Francisco. His mother, Flora Wellman Chaney, a spiritualist and music teacher, married John London later that year. John continually moved the family around California looking for work on farms and ranches, and young Jack was self-sufficient by the time he was fourteen. After working as a newspaper delivery boy, cannery worker, and seaman aboard a sealing vessel, in 1894 he joined Coxey’s Army, a group of jobless men, on a march to Washington, D.C., to protest economic conditions. London abandoned the group along the way and eventually served prison time in northern New York for vagrancy. In prison he reflected on his position at the base of the social pyramid as exploited worker and developed his own branch of Socialism, influenced by the writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Nietzsche. He joined the Socialist Labor Party and, espousing the idea that education is the route out of exploitation, enrolled at the University of California at Berkeley. He dropped out after just one semester but continued to educate himself by reading the fiction of such writers as Robert Louis Stevenson, Rudyard Kipling, and Joseph Conrad and the philosophical and political works of Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Adam Smith, Immanuel Kant, and Herbert Spencer.

It is telling that when London joined the Klondike Gold Rush in 1897, he packed a copy of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species and John Milton’s Paradise Lost alongside such essentials as bacon and flour. London returned no richer than he was when he left and decided to devote himself to writing. Though London later claimed, “I did not know a soul who had ever published anything... I had no one to give me tips,” in fact he counted among his good friends the poet George Sterling, the writer and journalist Ambrose Bierce, and the editors of the San Francisco Call and the Oakland Times. He began writing newspaper articles on the Russo-Japanese war and the Mexican Revolution, as well as short stories, and within two decades he had published forty-seven books. By 1913 London was the highest-paid writer in the world, and The Call of the Wild and White Fang were enduringly popular with critics and the public. Both stories draw heavily from London’s Yukon experience and exhibit the influence of Darwin’s notion of the survival of the fittest; both also show London’s avoidance of sentimentality and his commitment to presenting injustice and brutality. London married Bess Maddern, whom he claimed to have chosen for mating possibilities, not for love, in 1900. The couple had two daughters, Joan and Bess, and soon divorced. In 1905 London married Charmian Kittredge, his so-called “Mate Woman,” with whom he shared many of his adventures and who was the model for many of his female characters. Jack London died of uremia and renal colic in 1916.

The World of Jack London,
The Call of the Wild, and White Fang

1876John Griffith London is born January 12 in San Francisco to Flora Wellman Chaney. Flora marries John London on September 7.
1878—1886The Londons move around California as John looks for work on farms and ranches. Flora and John’s schemes to make money fail. In 1886 the Londons settle in Oakland, where young Jack works odd jobs and spends his free time in the Oakland Public Library reading novels and travelogues.
1891London works in a cannery. He borrows money to buy a sloop, the Razzle-Dazzle, and sails through San Francisco Bay raiding oyster beds.
1892London goes to work for the California Fish Patrol.
1893A seven-month voyage aboard the sealing vessel Sophia Sutherland takes London to Hawaii, the Bonin Islands, Japan, and the Bering Sea. At sea, London begins to write, and his experiences inspire a piece of short fiction, “Story of a Typhoon off the Coast of Japan,” that wins first prize in a writing contest sponsored by the San Francisco Morning Call. The Panic of 1893 grips the country, and the growing use of machinery and the depressed economy lead to the unemployment of vast numbers of American workers.
1894London joins Kelly’s Army, the western branch of a band of unemployed men known as Coxey’s Army, on a march to Washington, D.C., to protest economic conditions. He leaves the march before reaching Washington and makes his way north to Buffalo, New York, where he is arrested for vagrancy and spends a month in the Erie County Penitentiary. During his imprisonment, London formulates a social philosophy informed by the ideas of Karl Marx and Friedrich Nietzsche.
1895London attends Oakland High School and publishes in school publications.
1896London joins the Socialist Labor Party. He attends the University of California at Berkeley for one semester.
1897London joins the Klondike Gold Rush and spends the winter in the Yukon.
1898Upon returning from his unsuccessful Klondike trip, London devotes himself to writing.
1899London sells his story “To the Man on the Trail,” one of many pieces that will appear in magazines and newspapers.
1900London marries Bessie Mae Maddern. The Son of the Wolf, a collection of Klondike tales, is published.
1901Joan, the London’s first daughter, is born January 15. The God of His Fathers, more stories about the Klondike, is published.
1902London spends six weeks in the East End of London, accumulating material for his The People of the Abyss, a sociological study of the slums that is published in 1903. His second daughter, Becky, is born October 20. Children of the Frost, another collection of Klondike tales, is published.
1903London falls in love with Charmian Kittredge; Bessie and Jack are separated.