JACK

LONDON

John Griffith London (1876-1916)

was born in San Francisco of an

unmarried mother of wealthy

background, Flora Wellman. His

father may have been William

Chaney, a journalist, lawyer, and

major figure in the development of

American astrology.

• London's first book was published, The

Son of the Wolf (1900).

• The God of His Fathers (1901)

• A Daughter of the Snows (1902)

• The Road (1907)

• The Call of the Wild (1903)

Jack London's most

successful book, The

Call of the Wild, was

awarded the Newberry

Medal in 1931.

London died November 22, 1916, in a sleepin porch in a cottage on his ranch. He was in extreme pain and taking morphine, and it is possible that a morphine overdose, accidental or deliberate, may have contributed to his death. The biographer Staszwrites, "Following London's death, for a number of reasons, a biographical myth developed in which he has been portrayed as an alcoholic womanizer who committed suicide. Recent scholarship based upon firsthand documents challenges this caricature."[4