One of the world’s most popular authors has surpassed even the legendary fairy tale writer Hans Christian Andersen in terms of publication numbers. This uniquely fated writer burst onto the literary scene, fueled by a fascinating personal journey marked by overcoming hardships and a passion for adventure.
Fame … Before Birth
Jack London became a remarkable writer thanks to his talent and hard work, but he gained notoriety even before he was born. The citizens of San Francisco learned about the impending arrival of an unwanted child from a flamboyant couple through the newspapers. The private story gained public attention after a scandal involving his mother’s suicide attempt. Flora Wellman, the youngest daughter of a large family and a builder of the Pennsylvania Canal, was an English and Welsh music teacher who became fascinated with spiritualism. This led her to a relationship with William Chaney, an astrologer of Irish descent. The news of his partner’s pregnancy did not excite the future father, but Flora refused to terminate the pregnancy at his suggestion.
In despair, the young woman attempted to take her own life and was injured in the process. The press erupted in a frenzy: journalists scrambled to report the story of the unfortunate American woman who suffered due to the well-known professor of astrology and magic. Notably, the oldest daily publication, the San Francisco Chronicle, published an article titled “Abandoned Wife.” Thus, for the first time, the expected birth of the future American writer was announced by city reporters, and a new resident of San Francisco was born on January 12, 1876, already “famous.”
The newborn child bore the surname of his biological father, the tormentor: the baby’s first name was John Chaney. In Jack London’s biography, his father is described as a lawyer knowledgeable in literature and mathematics. This is why William Chaney was concerned that the “bad publicity” would tarnish his name. Due to the unwanted attention, he did not acknowledge his paternity, even though his son inherited his father’s traits, including his career path. It seems that Jack London’s interest in travel and adventure also came from Chaney Sr., who loved sea voyages and ultimately had no fixed residence.
Flora Wellman and John London
A Difficult Childhood
Regardless, after marrying a new partner, Jack’s mother changed her son’s surname to the one the world knows: within eight months, John Chaney became John Griffith London. The boy was adopted by John London Sr., a farmer and Civil War veteran who had lost his own son and wife. The widower came into the new family with two daughters, one of whom, the elder Eliza, would later become Jack’s best friend and guardian angel. John Jr. also developed a warm relationship with his stepfather, but he was more attached to his Black nurse, Jenny Prinstar.
Jack London’s childhood coincided with a challenging time of economic crisis that began in the “land of great opportunities” in 1873. During this depressive period, hundreds of thousands of Americans lost their jobs. Jack’s stepfather also struggled with farming. The family moved to Oakland, where the boy completed elementary school and discovered the library: he became its most loyal visitor, devouring books one after another. While his mother chased after adventurous ideas for quick wealth, the hardworking student earned money selling newspapers, setting up bowling pins, and cleaning beer pavilions in the local park.
9-year-old Jack London
Due to financial difficulties, Jack had to end his education at the age of 14. There was no money to pay for lessons, as the head of the family was hit by a train and became a double amputee. From that point on, the burden of supporting the family fell heavily on the teenager, who had to work hard and compensate for his lack of knowledge with self-education. Working 12-hour days at a canning factory, 14-year-old Jack dreamed of escaping this hell for a world of creativity and exciting adventures.
Captain Jack
Hoping to escape poverty, at 15, Jack left the “slave galleys” to avoid becoming, in his words, “working cattle.” He borrowed three hundred dollars from his nurse to buy an old schooner, the Razzle-Dazzle, on which he planned to get rich. Gathering a “pirate crew” with friends, “Captain Jack” set sail on his first voyage to explore the “oyster territories.” The “conquered” catch was profitably sold to restaurants, and soon Jack tasted the sweetness of money. This was when alcohol entered his life, a companion he would keep until the end, only consciously rejecting this destructive passion at the very end of his journey.
Leading the poaching “oyster fleet,” the brave teenager matured and even gained respect among professional sailors. Starting with the actual theft of mollusks in a private bay in San Francisco, where young “sea wolves” operated at their own risk, he later became a catcher of poachers while serving in the “fishing patrol.” In 1893, Jack London set off to catch sea lions off the coast of Japan, and this would not be his last adventure that would inspire his literary work.
Jack London on the schooner
In essence, the future writer entered literature while still in school, where he was excused from the disliked choir practice on the condition that he dedicate his free time to writing “a thousand words” daily. His desire to write helped the young man pass his high school exams externally and enroll in university, where he would only study for one year. By the age of 23, after changing numerous jobs, Jack London found his calling in literature, and his rich life experience made him a writer.
From London’s astonishing books, readers learn about his sailor days on the industrial schooner Sophie Sutherland, his grueling work schedule at a jute factory, and his arrest as a participant in the unemployed march on Washington (a committed socialist, he was imprisoned during that protest). The writer also recounts his adventures in the gold mines. The “Gold Rush” did not reward the prospector with money, but it enriched him with unique stories. Alaska would become his literary Klondike, where the young author would find treasures more valuable than gold: the harsh natural conditions of the “White Silence” would reveal the value of friendship and love that helped survive the toughest trials.
Stirring Up Boredom
Jack London received his first literary fee of $25 in 1893 for the essay “Typhoon off the Coast of Japan”: he won a contest held by a California newspaper, outpacing authors from two universities. This solidified the debutant’s belief that he was on the right path. His work with words would prove to be the niche where his independence, free-thinking, and dedication to the craft would shine.
His creativity would bring him both the satisfaction of success and the disappointment of achieving his goals through the biographical novel “Martin Eden.” Like his tragic hero, who wonders why people did not notice his talent earlier when he wrote his most valuable works, Jack London stirred up the “sentimental boredom” in American literature from his very first publications. Starting in 1900, his collections of short stories “The Son of the Wolf” and “The God of His Fathers,” as well as the novels “The Daughter of the Snows” and “The Call of the Wild,” adventure tales, and animal stories, including the popular works “The Sea-Wolf” and “White Fang,” were published one after another.
At the beginning of 1900, Jack London married Bessie Maddern, the fiancée of his deceased university friend, who bore him daughters Joan and Bess. However, three years later, the writer left his family, falling in love with another woman. He married Charmian Kittredge, a war correspondent who covered the events of the Russo-Japanese War, in 1905.
Jack London with his wife
Two years later, the writer embarked on a round-the-world journey aboard the Snark, built according to his own designs. Jack London planned to travel the seas and oceans for seven years, but due to a progressive illness, he was forced to come ashore after two years.
“Death is Peace”
Now he could focus on the creativity that made him a wealthy man: the fee for a writer with a unique style and original themes at that time reached up to $50,000 per book. Over seventeen years, the author published two to three new books each year. He worked 17 to 20 hours a day, motivating himself with his famous saying: “Don’t wait for inspiration; chase it with a club.”
Jack London’s work includes the utopian novel “The Iron Heel” (about the rise of an oligarchic dictatorship in the U.S.), a result of his fascination with the ideas of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. He joined the Socialist Party in 1901. His interest in the works of Herbert Spencer and Friedrich Nietzsche is evident in the philosophically rich, literary, and politically charged manifesto novel “Martin Eden,” published in 1909, which is considered Jack London’s most significant work.
Jack London at work, 1914
The autobiographical character of the famous writer Martin Eden was created by Jack London based on his own experience. By telling the story of an ordinary sailor who achieved literary recognition through his innate talent, the author composed a hymn to the creative potential of the average person. Unfortunately, Jack London’s life ended tragically, much like his hero. The projection of Martin Eden’s final act leads skeptics to speculate about the writer’s possible suicide. He contemplated voluntarily ending his life in his autobiographical story “John Barleycorn”: “Death is the end, peace. Why then does a person not want to die?”
The writer’s grave in Jack London State Park, Glen Ellen, California
Taking morphine to alleviate the pain from uremia (he had already given up alcohol by that time), on the night of November 22, 1916, the writer exceeded the dosage. Jack London was found dead in his California estate in Glen Ellen. The author of 40 books was 40 years old.