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Jack London, probably born John Griffith Chaney ( January 12, 1876 - November 22, 1916), was an American author of over 50 books.
Jack London was born in San Francisco, California.
Jack London's biological father is believed by Clarice Stasz and other biographers to have been the astrologer William Chaney . Chaney was in fact a distinguished and respectable figure; according to Stasz, "From the viewpoint of serious astrologers today, Chaney is a major figure who shifted the practice from quackery to a more rigorous method."
Jack London did not learn of Chaney's putative paternity until adulthood. In 1897 he wrote to Chaney and received a letter in which Chaney stated flatly "I was never married to Flora Wellman ," and that he was "impotent" during the period in which they lived together and "cannot be your father."
Whether the marriage was, in fact, legalized is unknown. Most San Francisco civil records were destroyed in the 1906 earthquake. (For the same reason, it is not known with certainty what name appeared on his birth certificate). Stasz notes that in his memoirs Chaney refers to Jack London's mother Flora Wellman, as having been his "wife." Stasz also notes an advertisement in which Flora calls herself "Florence Wellman Chaney."
Jack London was essentially self-taught. In 1883 he found and read Ouida's long Victorian novel Signa, which describes an unschooled Italian peasant child who achieves fame as an opera composer. He credited this as the seed of his literary aspiration.
After graduating from grammar school in 1889, Jack London began working from twelve to eighteen hours a day at Hickmott's Cannery. Seeking a way out of this gruelling labor, he borrowed money from his black foster mother Jennie Prentiss, bought the sloop Razzle-Dazzle from an oyster pirateThe term oyster pirate is rarely if ever encountered outside of accounts of the life of Jack London. It is often mentioned without any explanation ("he was a jailbird, sailor, seal-hunter, oyster pirate, novelist, laundry worker, yachtsman, and coal shove named French Frank, and became an oyster pirate himself. In John BarleycornJohn Barleycorn is an ancient folksong from Britain. The character "John Barleycorn" in the song is a personification of the important cereal grain crop barley, and of the alcoholic beverages made from it, beer and whisky. A version of the song is include he claims to have stolen French Frank's mistress Mamie. After a few months his sloop became damaged beyond repair. He switched to the side of the law and became a member of the California Fish Patrol .
In 1893Events January 1 Japan accepts the Gregorian calendar January 2 Introduction by Webb C. Ball of the General Railroad Timepiece Standards in North America: Railroad chronometers January 13 The Independent Labour Party of the UK has its first meeting. Janua, he signed on to the sealing schoonerA schooner is a type of sailing ship characterized by the use of fore-and-aft sails on two or more masts. Schooners were first used by the Dutch in the 16th or 17th century, and further developed in North America from the time of the American Revolution. Sophia Sutherland, bound for the coast of JapanJapan (, Nippon/Nihon literally "the origin of the sun") is a country in East Asia situated on a chain of islands east of the Asian continent on the western edge of the Pacific Ocean. The largest of these islands are, from north to south, Hokkaido , Honsh. When he returned, the country was in the grip of the panic of '93The Panic of 1893 was a financial crisis that hit the United States upon the concurrence of several events. First, too many people attempted to redeem notes for gold; ultimately the statutory limit for the maximum amount of gold in federal reserves was re and Oakland was swept by labor unrest. After gruelling jobs in a jute mill and a street-railway power plant, he joined Kelly's industrial army and began his career as a tramp.
In 1894Events January 8 A fire at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago causes a good deal of damage. January 9 New England Telephone and Telegraph installs the first battery-operated telephone switchboard ( Lexington, Massachusetts). February 15 04:51 GMT, he spent thirty days for vagrancy in the Erie County Penitentiary at Buffalo. In The Road, he wrote:
A pivotal event was his discovery in 1895 of the Oakland Public Library and a sympathetic librarian, Ina Coolbrith (who later became California's first poet laureate and an important figure in the San Francisco literary community).
After many experiences as a hobo, sailor, and member of Kelly's Army he returned to Oakland and attended Oakland High School , where he contributed a number of articles to the high school's magazine, The Aegis.
Jack London desperately wanted to attend the University of California and, in 1896 after a summer of intense cramming, did so; but financial circumstances forced him to leave in 1897 and he never graduated. Biographer Russ Kingman says that "there is no record that Jack ever wrote for student publications" there.
In later life Jack London was a polymath with wide-ranging interests and a personal library of 15,000 volumes.
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