Jack London

Jack London

John Griffith Chaney, who is publicly known as Jack London, was born on January 12th, 1876 (Cavendish 870). He was born in Oakland, California and is the son of William Henry Chaney and Flora Wellman (870). His father, William was a war veteran, while Flora was a musician and spiritualist. Soon after Jack was born his step-sister Eliza was born Jack and his sister got diphtheria at were forced to move. (871). The first wife Jack married was named Bess Maddern, they were married for 8 years then Jack divorced November 11, 1904. Jack remarried to Charmain Kitteridge in 1905. (871). Jack London has a drive to write because of many different things in his life such as: his upbringing, his love for the wild and his will to succeed in life.

He grew up in Oakland and went to a public school. He finished out his years of middle school and junior high but when high school came around he skipped it and stayed home to work (871). After working for a while he got bored and decided he should go back to school. At age 19 he got back into public high school and realized it was not what he wanted to do and dropped out (871). After finding out the hard way he realized that if he didn't get a good education he would not be able to have as good a job as he wanted so he stayed home and studied for over 18 hours a day and he passed the college entrance exam. He was accepted into the University of California located in Berkley (871). The public library and it soon became one of his favorite places to visit (871). If he wasn't in the room or in class I always knew he was at the library. His nose was always buried in different books everyday.

Jack bought an Oyster digging company named Razzle Dazzle which he seemed pretty content with for a while. He dug for oysters at night, that didn't really belong to him, and sold them on the market to the general public. It seemed as though he was making a good livings wage for a single man so far, but the job wasn't the best. After a little while of doing this job he joined a large boat crew on the Sophia Sutherland (871). The boat was headed for Japan and this would have been the first time Jack had left the country. After the ship left Jack experienced lots of new things but one he certainly remembered, sea sickness. Most of the nights on the ship were not pleasant due to the large roaring seas crashing up against the side of the boat and the water flowing over onto the ships deck. He could only take so much of this and after only three months of this came back home to Oakland and stayed for a while. Upon his return however, he had written a story about his voyage to Japan.

Jack submitted it to a writing contest and to his surprise won it. The book was titled "Story of a Typhoon off a coast of Japan.". After settling back down in Oakland he got a job in not only a mill but also an electrical plant. While working there he learned about a band of unemployed workers who called themselves Kelly's army. He had his fun with the group and traveled to lots of places but ended up getting stuck in the Niagara Falls area county jail for 30 days on the charges of vagrancy. After he served his time he came upon an interesting offer from his brother-in-law and decided to get in on it. In 1897 he joined his brother-in-law to the great Yukon Gold Rush. Both of them young men and ready for the adventure headed off for the territory with high hopes. However, Even the highest of hopes can be brought down with a crashing blow as theirs did. Neither one of them had found a spec of gold both of them had suffered badly from scurvy. Upon Jacks return he found his incredibly kind step-father had died and his mother was in a terrible state of debt. Doing what almost any son would have done he stayed home and helped as much he could. While in the meantime he continued writing stories. None of which had been successful until he wrote "to the man on the trail" in 1899 (873).

He lived on the wages he made from the story for a little while and then on around his 21st birthday his mother revealed to him that the man he thought to be his Father was actually his step-father (Reeseman 1).

After his mother coming out of her stage of debt and learning about his step-father he moved out of the house. He had heard about one of his friends who had died young while engaged. He felt bad for the fiancÐ"© of his friend and visited her to comfort her. They became quiet acquainted and even started to date. This was all going good and then London proposed to Bess Maddern and asked her to be his wife. She agreed and they were eventually were married. Their marriage did not last very long at all. Not long after they had married they were divorced and it seemed as though right after their divorce London was asking Flora Chancy for her hand in marriage (870). Now onto his second wife he had a rough idea of how and how not to treat a woman and his current marriage lasted longer. In 1901 Jack and Floras, first daughter, Joan, was born. Only a year after in 1902 their second daughter, Becky, was born. Both of those girls were such great little bundles of joy.

While in London he had started on another book, this one he titled "the people of the abyss". It was based on his findings over there