Jack London was born in San Francisco in 1876. (3.) Before he was even born his mother had tried to commit suicide with a bullet to the head, luckily it didn’t work. He grew up in the slums of the city and his mother left him to be raised by an ex-slave named Virginia.(1.) He finished primary school then worked around from relaxed job to job until the depression of 1929 hit. London became depressed like a majority of Americans and tried to commit suicide but failed. His career first began when he noticed that Socialism was creating social classes and he was at the very bottom. He started preaching this idea on street corners and became known as “the boy socialist”. He tried to further his education but dropped out of prep school and kicked out of a boarding school for accomplishing the curriculum in two years in advance. He then went to Canada in search for gold but when he realized he was on the brink of dying he vowed to himself he would become a writer before that happened. His most popular works were The Sea-Wolf, The Iron Heel, To Build a Fire, and Call of the Wild. His work was thought of as crude and rude disrupting readers all over the country. It was mostly the truth though. While most literates wrote about fantasies and love London wrote about death in an honest way. (2.) He was the first to write something like this leading to Upton Sinclair, John Steinbeck, and Ernest Hemingway to soon follow along. Most of the public however still disapproved of his work of “art”. A critique in a magazine assumed he would end up in jail for it sooner or later. London soon turned into an alcoholic. His constant drinking caused pain in his kidneys and liver which he tried to cover up with morphine slowly killing him. Almost 40 years later his mother’s suicide attempt finally hit him. Jack London left behind a completely new style of writing, naturalism. (1.)
· 1. Hari, Johann. “Jack London’s many sides emerge in James L. Haley’s Wolf. – By Johann Hari – Slate Magazine. “Slate Magazine. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Mar. 2011. http://www.slate.com/id/2261928/pagenum/2
· 2. Baym, Nina. ed. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 7th ed. Vols. C, D and E. New York: Norton, 2007.
· 3. Stasz, Dr. Clarice. “Jack London: Biography.” The Jack London Online Collection. N.p., n.d Web. 21 Mar. 2011. http://london.sonoma.edu/jackbio.html
