Jack London

A brief introduction to the author…

Early Years…

Born on January 12, 1876, in San Francisco

Named John Griffith Chaney

Took his stepfather’s last name, London, shortly

after birth

Family lived in Oakland, CA

Childhood…

London quit school at age 14 (8th grade), and worked and

traveled for many years

For awhile, he made a living stealing oysters

Then, he worked on a government patrol to prevent people

from stealing oysters

He also went to Japan, working as a sailor.

Early Adulthood

London returned to school at age 19

He completed a four-year high school curriculum in one year, and entered UC Berkley

After one year at the university, London couldn’t resist the lure of the Klondike Gold Rush in Canada

He never returned to college, but he never got rich from his trips to the gold fields

Onward to the Klondike!London

would have

been on a

boat like this.

Jack London's Klondike Cabin

Klondike Gold Rush - 1897

Thousands went to the Klondike in hopes of getting rich

Show calculator http://www.in2013dollars.com/1897-dollars-in-2016?amount=15000000

Conditions were fierce: harsh elements, hunger, illness, death

Contracted scurvy and returned to CA in 1898

Wrote!

The Call of the Wild was written in less than five weeks. He made no

revisions!

Skagway harbor and docks

The Klondike

From out of the Klondike. . .

While in Alaska, London became friends with the brothers Marshall and Louis Whitford Bond. Their dog, a St. Bernard-collie mix named Jack made an impression on him. Buck is based on this dog.

In 1901, London visited the Bond brothers at their ranch in Santa Clara, which was owned by their father, a judge. This became the basis for Judge Miller’s ranch in the book, down to the last detail!

While in the Klondike, London was affected by animal cruelty. In one case, he wrote about “Dead Horse Trail,” a section of pass littered with the bodies of horses. “Men shot them, worked them to death, and when they were gone, went back to the beach and bought more. . . Some did not bother to shoot them—stripping the saddles off and the shoes and leaving them where they fell. Their hearts turned to stone—those which did not break—and they became beasts, the mean on Dead Horse Trail.”

Though The Call of the Wild is about dogs, this same heartlessness is vividly depicted in the book.

White Pass: The Dead Horse Trail

View of Skagway from a mountain circa 1896

Broadway Street, circa 1900

Career/Family

London completed fifty books – including novels and short story collections – during his seventeen-year writing career

At the time, he was the highest-paid writer in the United States

London married twice

He and his first wife had two daughters

In 1905, he bought a ranch in Glen Ellen, CA

Final Years

London intended to build his dream mansion, Wolf House

In 1913, The mansion burned to the ground in a mysterious fire

London was ill, reportedly from kidney disease

On November 22, 1916, Jack London succumbed to death shortly after eating his dinner – he was forty years old

Watch trailor!

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