Jack London

Jack London
London in 1903
London in 1903
BornJohn Griffith Chaney
(1876-01-12)January 12, 1876
San Francisco, California, U.S.
DiedNovember 22, 1916(1916-11-22) (aged 40)
Glen Ellen, California, U.S.
Occupation
  • Novelist
  • journalist
  • short story writer
  • essayist
Literary movementAmerican Realism, Naturalism
Notable worksThe Call of the Wild (1903)
White Fang (1906)
The Iron Heel (1908)
Martin Eden (1909)
Spouse
Elizabeth Maddern
(m. 1900; div. 1904)
(m. 1905)
ChildrenJoan London
Becky London
Signature

John Griffith Chaney[1][A] (January 12, 1876 – November 22, 1916), better known as Jack London,[2][3][4][5] was an American novelist, journalist and activist. A pioneer of commercial fiction and American magazines, he was one of the first American authors to become an international celebrity and earn a large fortune from writing.[6] He was also an innovator in the genre that would later become known as science fiction.[7]

London was part of the radical literary group "The Crowd" in San Francisco and a passionate advocate of animal welfare, workers' rights and socialism.[8][9] London wrote several works dealing with these topics, such as his dystopian novel The Iron Heel, his non-fiction exposé The People of the Abyss, War of the Classes, and Before Adam.

His most famous works include The Call of the Wild and White Fang, both set in Alaska and the Yukon during the Klondike Gold Rush, as well as the short stories "To Build a Fire", "An Odyssey of the North", and "Love of Life". He also wrote about the South Pacific in stories such as "The Pearls of Parlay" and "The Heathen".

  1. ^ Reesman 2009, p. 23.
  2. ^ "London, Jack". Encyclopædia Britannica Library Edition. Retrieved October 5, 2011.
  3. ^ Dictionary of American Biography Base Set. American Council of Learned Societies, 1928–1936. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale. 2006.
  4. ^ London 1939, p. 12.
  5. ^ New York Times November 23, 1916.
  6. ^ Haley, James (2011). Wolf: The Lives of Jack London. Basic Books. pp. 12–14. ISBN 978-0465025039.
  7. ^ (1910) "Specialty of Short-story Writing," The Writer, XXII, January–December 1910, p. 9: "There are eight American writers who can get $1000 for a short story—Robert W. Chambers, Richard Harding Davis, Jack London, O. Henry, Booth Tarkington, John Fox, Jr., Owen Wister, and Mrs. Burnett." $1,000 in 1910 dollars is roughly equivalent to $33,000 today
  8. ^ Swift, John N. "Jack London's 'The Unparalleled Invasion': Germ Warfare, Eugenics, and Cultural Hygiene." American Literary Realism, vol. 35, no. 1, 2002, pp. 59–71. JSTOR 27747084.
  9. ^ Hensley, John R. "Eugenics and Social Darwinism in Stanley Waterloo's 'The Story of Ab' and Jack London's 'Before Adam.'" Studies in Popular Culture, vol. 25, no. 1, 2002, pp. 23–37. JSTOR 23415006.


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