The American Author Jack London

Almost a hundred years have passed since the death of the American writer, Jack London. Despite this passage of time, London remains one of the world’s most famous writers, with some of his best known works taught in schools as examples of the best that English literature has to offer. A prolific 19th Century writer, London was one of the first American writers who were able to make a career out of his writing, largely made possible because of the increasing magazine market.

Jack London was born John Griffith, on the 12th January 1876 in California. There is a certain amount of guesswork about who his father was, as most records were destroyed in the 1906 earthquake. What evidence there is though was that London’s father was William Henry Chaney, an astrologer, who abandoned mother and baby shortly after London’s birth. London’s mother was Flora Wellman, a music teacher, though London was actually raised by Virginia Prentiss, an ex-slave, as Flora was often ill. London would often describe his early life as one in which he lived in the Oakland slums, this is an exaggeration. His family upbringing was a working class one, and Flora had remarried, to a John London in 1876.

Jack London - PD-old

Whilst living in Oakland, London managed to complete grade school, though he was mostly self-taught, through the reading of books from the local library. At the age of 13, though London was forced to seek employment and began to work at Hickmott’s Cannery for in excess of twelve hours each day. Saving some money and borrowing more, meant that London could eventually afford to leave the Cannery. Buying his own sloop, London became an oyster pirate, where he would raid the private harvesting areas each night. It was a career that was short-lived, damage to his boat meant that he was forced to quit his new found trade.

His working life after this was not a well paying one, though it did provide him with many experiences that he would later incorporate in his works. Firstly in 1893, he sailed a schooner hunting seals off the coast of Japan, on his return to California, though he was forced into manual labour, in a jute mill and street-railway power plant, before becoming a hobo for a while.

As a hobo, London had realised that he only way he could earn a decent living and avoid manual labour, was to use his brains, and making writing a business. London returned to Oakland, attending Oakland High School, before attending the University of California. Though his stay at the university was only for a short period, a lack of finances meaning he did not graduate, the time in education showed him that he become a successful writer, having written articles for the High School’s magazine.

In 1897, London, sought a quick route to fortune, and along with several thousand others joined the Klondike Gold Rush. Unfortunately he failed to gain his fortune, though aside from a bout of scurvy, London gained a backdrop to many of his first successful stories. On his return to Oakland, London decided to begin his writing career, whilst a slow start brought doubts, $5 for “To the Man On Trail”, this was quickly followed by $40 for “A Thousand Deaths”. London was fortunate to be a writer at a time when a booming magazine market was seeking more and more stories to satisfy their readers. By 1900, London was well on his way to a successful writing career, and in the same year he earned $2,500, in today’s money this would equate to $200,000, certainly enough not to worry about a return to manual labour.

London was married twice, the first time in 1900 as his career started to develop. London’s first marriage was to one of his friends, Bess Maddern, whom he married on the 7th April 1900. The marriage had nothing to do with love on either side, and was born more out of friendship and a desire to have children. London, in fact had two children, Joan born 15th January 1901, and Bessie born 20th October 1902. After the children were born, however, there was nothing to keep the couple together. London left his wife in 1903, although a final divorce was not granted until the end of the following year.

Jack London - PD-old

London’s second marriage was much more successful, and in Charmian Kittredge, London found a lover and companion. Married in 1905, they went everywhere together, including cruising to Australia and Hawaii. The only downside of their marriage was that they failed to have any children together, as one child died at birth and Charmian suffered miscarriage in a second attempt.

In a twenty year writing career, London proved to be a prolific writer, writing twenty-five novels, three auto-biographies, three collection of short stories, one play and fifty short stories. Whilst novels such as “The Call of the Wild” and “White Fang”, critics agree that London’s forte was in his short stories. London, though, used his experiences to ensure that there was realism in his plots. Seafaring knowledge shows up extremely well in novels such as the “Sea-Wolf”, whilst even his time as a struggling writer is displayed in “Martin Eden”. It is though his experiences in the Klondike that provided London with his best works, including “To Build a Fire”. Surprisingly enough for the time, many of his short stories would be classed as science fiction, as germ warfare, energy weapons, and invisibility were central plots.

With the amount of material that London managed to write, came numerous accusations of Plagiarism. He could base only so much of his works on his life experiences, and as a result would trawl through other sources for his inspiration. London was known to have actually brought novels and ideas from other authors, and would also read through newspapers from the English speaking world to gather together possible writing materials. His personal library also included some fifteen thousand volumes. He would turn factual accounts into fictional work, though this could cause problems, one instance came about when both London and an author by the name of Frank Norris published stories in the same month based on the same newspaper account. In his research London, may not as been as thorough as he should have been, and within “The Iron Heel”, he basis a chapter on a piece of fictional work believing it to be a factual speech.

Even his most famous works are not devoid of the accusations, “The Call of the Wild”, was certainly influenced by Egerton Young’s “My Dogs in the Northland”, although London did acknowledge it as one of the sources he had used.

The other main influence on his writings were his own political views, for many years London was a committed Socialist. In 1896 London became a member of the Socialist Labour Party, and was a prominent member making many speeches whilst in Oakland. Leaving the Party in 1901, London joined the Socialist Party of America, for whom he twice ran for Oakland mayor. Though he lectured on the subject, and wrote collections of essays on socialism, his burning desire for the subject seemed to diminish over time. Eventually he became an employer rather than an employee, when he employed a number of staff at his ranch.

London has not been criticised by history for his political views, but history has been less kind on what is perceived as an underlying racist nature. This is still seen as an issue today, and in 1996 a decision to honour London, by changing two street names to his, had to be reversed after protests. Looking at his work throughout his career, there seems to be little evidence to show he was an outright racist. London did share a common Californian concern about the amount of Asian immigration, but at the same time he admired the Japanese. Also as a boxing correspondent, London greatly praised, Jack Johnson, a black boxer, when he defeated the “Great White Hope”, Jim Jeffries in 1910.

As his writing career became more and more successful, so London sought some way of spending his money. Thus in 1910, London purchased a ranch for $26,000. Set in one thousand acres, in Glen Ellen, California, London attempted to make the ranch into a successful business. It is often said that in putting so much thought and effort into the ranch, resulted in his work suffering, as his novels and short stories were seen as money making pieces rather than works of art. The ranch though was far from being a successful business, and as both his writing and ranch suffered, so London turned to alcohol, though whether he was a full blown alcoholic is debatable.

There have long been suspicions that London committed suicide, though there are often such rumours when someone in the limelight passes away at a young age. On his death on the 22nd November 1916, London was only forty years of age. Suicide had played a central role to many of his fictional works but London’s death certificate states that the cause of death was uremia, or uremic poisoning. Affecting the kidneys, it was known that London was suffering high levels of pain, for which he was taking morphine, leading to conclusions of an accidental or deliberate overdose.

London’s simple grave can be visited in Glen Ellen, California, within the Jack London State Historic Park. His buried ashes were joined by those of Charmian, who died almost forty years after her husband.

Prolific doesn’t necessarily equate to being a great author, but in a relatively short writing career spanning less than twenty years, London wrote some notable works. If it is true that life experiences ensure that a writer’s work improves it is difficult to envisage the amount and quality of work that London may have created.

Copyright - First Published 21st February 2008

Keywords - Jack London, Jack London Author, Jack London Writer, Jack London Call of the Wild