Jack London | Translations

Many historians believe William Chaney, a successful lawyer, journalist, and astrologer, was his father. But Jack never had much contact with him, instead spending most of his time with his sickly mother and her new husband, John London, a veteran of the Civil War.

Jack spent most of his youth working on the sea or with the army. He served on a patrol ship that sailed in the San Francisco Bay for a time, scouting out and arresting poachers. He spent most of his younger years on ships, encountering many different cultures, preferring the constant movement of his work to a sedentary life. Unlike many other writers, he didn't consider writing something he loved doing. Instead, he spent countless hours mimicking and copying the styles of other famous writers in case he came on hard times and needed the money.

None of the writings of his early years gained any kind of publication or attention. Instead, he joined miners from all around the world, what is today known as "The Gold Rush Craze," which lasted from 1896 to 1899 in the Yukon territory. Again, he found little success in gold mining, but what he did succeed in was writing about his adventures during those days.

Those stories were first published in 1899, and the public demand for his work only grew afterward. From 1900 to 1916, he wrote 15 novels and dozens of short stories. His family described him as someone who did not let a day go by without writing something.

But even that success did not come easy. Overland Monthly accepted his first story, 'To the Man on the Trail,' but offered him only $5. Thankfully, his other story, "A Thousand Deaths," was published by The Black Cat, who paid him $40 to have it in their magazine. In his words, he was "literally and literarily saved, as that was the first money I received for my writing."

Soon afterward, he married his long-time friend, Elizabeth Mee, in 1900, with whom he had two children. He published his first novel, "The Son of the Wolf," that same year. Though their marriage lasted only until 1904, Jack finished one of his most famous works

"The Call of the Wild" was published in 1903 in four installments through The Saturday Evening Post, for which London was paid $750. Soon after, Macmillian published it in full, and it has not been out of print since then.

A year after his first marriage ended, in 1905, he bought a piece of land in Glen Ellen, where, two years prior, he met his second wife, Charmaine Kittredge. The two had begun a secret love affair when she nursed him back to health after he was injured on the ranch.

Joseph Noel calls the events from 1903 to 1905 "a domestic drama that would have intrigued the pen of an Ibsen... London's had comedy relief in it and a sort of easy-going romance." [51] In general, London was restless in his first marriage, sought extramarital sexual affairs, and found, in Charmian Kittredge, not only a sexually active and adventurous partner but his future life companion. They attempted to have children; one child died at birth, and another pregnancy ended in a miscarriage.

The same year he bought the land where the two had met. They also married and spent eleven years together until London died in 1916. Several of his characters were also based on her, mainly Saxon from "The Valley of the Moon" and Paula in "Little Lady of the Big House."

As his popularity as a writer grew, London always tried to keep up with his readers. He was famous for answering most of his "fan mail" even though he received around ten thousand letters a year. He always invested money from his later work into his ranch, adding acres to it all his life. He became a pioneer in soil preservation, growing all kinds of exotic fruits and trees that were not native to California. He also cared for many animals at his estate, even going so far as to become very vocal against animal violence.

London died on November 22nd, 1916. Though he was a robust man, he suffered from several tropical diseases, including kidney disease, and took pain medication. His ashes were placed beneath a moss-covered rock at his ranch. In 1955, after his wife's passing, she too was cremated and laid to rest at the same spot.