😉 Greetings to dear readers! In the article “Jack London: biography, interesting facts and videos” – about the life of the remarkable American writer Jack London
Jack London (1876-1916) is the fictitious name of John Griffith Cheney, an American adventure novelist, public figure and one of the best-selling authors of the late twentieth century. Most read works: “White Fang”, autobiographical novel “Martin Eden”, “Call of the Ancestors”.
Jack London biography
John Cheney was born in January 1876. His own father did not want to have children, and his mother made a desperate suicide attempt. Fortunately, Flora Wellman survived. But the name of the astrologer Cheney (John’s father) began to fade in the light of the scandalous headlines. This was the motive for not recognizing his own son.
Rumors spread quickly in San Francisco, and soon William Cheney left Flora for good. Even when John asked in his letters to his father if he was really his father, he received negative answers.
For some time, little Jack was brought up by his mother’s former servant. When Flora found a new husband in December 1876, she took her son. Since then, Jack has been under the supervision of a member of the Civil War in the United States – John London. This is how the pseudonym Jack appeared.
Jack London is 9 years old
The older half-sister constantly took care of him, was friends with him all his life. The stepfather made numerous attempts to cultivate the land and establish an economy, but they failed.
Jack’s family was forced to wander around different cities. The boy managed to graduate from primary school in Auckland, where the family moved.
Finding Yourself
Jack worked from morning to evening, tirelessly. He was hired as an assistant in a bowling alley, cleaned pavilions, sold newspapers on the streets. After school, he worked in the production of canned food.
After a while, he buys a fishing boat with borrowed money and earns little money by fishing illegally for oysters.
This is how his first literary works appeared: “Tales of a Fishing Patrol”, “Sea Wolf”. The activities at the burlap factory are reflected in the works “Martin Eden”, “John – a grain of barley”.
The birth of a writer
Officially, in 1893, a trial work “Typhoon off the coast of Japan” was published in a newspaper published in San Francisco. For this, the author was even awarded a prize. A year later, the writer is marching through Washington with a group of unemployed, and later he is arrested for begging. This is what his story “Hold on!”
During his wanderings, he realizes that earning a decent existence is possible only through mental labor. Therefore, he decides to become a writer. His attention was attracted by the works of K. Marx and F. Engels and he became a member of the Party of Socialist Labor.
Then, in 1900, he was seen in the ranks of the Socialist Party. Having lost faith in the fighting spirit of a political party, he renounced its membership in 1914.
In his native land, London continues to study in high school. He publishes in the Aegis school edition his works containing notes about his walks in America, for example, the story “The Road”.
Alaska
During this period, being in Alaska, he completely immersed himself in the description of the gold rush and the life of the peoples of the North. He will reflect it in the works “Children of Frost”, “Son of the Wolf”, “God of His Fathers” and others. A collection of works on the theme of the North called “The Light of the Wolf” is published.
In the famous story “Call of the Wild”, Jack London makes the protagonist of a dog that grew up in the southern part of America, but due to random events forced to live on the Arctic shelf and run in a sled on the instructions of a man.
Jack London becomes the first writer to extol animals over humans. He describes the changes taking place in people living in the harsh conditions of the North.
Illness and death
Over the entire bibliography of the writer, more than 77 million copies of Jack’s works have been published. The writer died of kidney disease in the town of Glenn Ellen in California. It is known that he abused morphine, the version of the writer’s suicide is not devoid of common sense.
In some of his novels, thoughts of suicide flashed: for example, Martin Eden drowned in the waters of the ocean. Jack London’s life span is short – only 40 years. His zodiac sign is Capricorn.
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