Jack London is one of the greatest natural writers. When jack was a child, he lived a very awkward and hectic life. As jack got older he got married twice and had three kids. He also wrote a lot about nature and wildlife in his books. However, by jacks forties he died. Jack London will always be known for his natural writing. Jack London was born in San Francisco, California in 1876 (Hart). He was the son of an unmarried woman named Flora Wellman who was a very wealthy woman (Stasz).
He is said to be the son of William Henry Chaney who was a journalist, lawyer, and major figure in the development of American astrology (Hart). While jack was young, his family was constantly on the move moving house to house and state to state (Stasz). Here are some of the places jacks were moved around to Oakland, CA, Alameda, CA, San Mateo County, CA, and to Livermore, CA (Timeline). Finally, Jack’s family moved back to Oakland, CA. Were Jack found a library and started to go back to school.
He started going to school when he was supposed to be in the fourth grade but Jack finished grammar school by eighth he graduated from Cole Grammar School. Form there Jack went and borrowed money to become an oyster pirate. He also bought a boat called the Razzle Dazzle. After he gets done with being an oyster pirate he starts doing fish patrol for Benicia, CA (Timeline). Let us just say that it seems to me like Jack had a hectic and fast passed life growing up. Flora Williams Jacks mom who was a well off woman that came from a family that had money. Flora was born in Massillon, Ohio, August 17, 1843. She was the youngest of five.
Her father Marshall Wellman, the richest man were they lived. Floras mom Eleanor Garrett Jones was the daughter of a devoted circus- rider of Welsh Extraction (Kingman). By Flora’s mid-seventies, she was excessively crippled from arthritis to use her own hands to do needlework or on the piano. After that her eye site started to worse it limited her reading. Eventually, she got sent to the hospital for a very short while. She was in the hospital in 1921 and she died on January 4, 1922. After she died, a local obituary recognized all the tributes that Jack London (her son) paid to his mother and sister.
Jacks second wife and all his kids went to jacks mothers funeral and they all said, “They felt saddened by the loss that what had become of a life once so promising and full of spirit” (Stasz). Jack stepfather, John London, was born on January 11, 1828 in Clearfield County, Pennsylvania. He grew up on a farm and got the same education as most farm kids back in the day. While very little is known about John London’s early life but, when he was nineteen, he was working as a section boss on a railroad, while he was doing that he fell in love with the boss’s daughter and married her.
After him and her had seven children he enlisted into the army during the Civil War. During the close of the war minus the use of one lung john also got a combination of smallpox’s and pneumonia. After he realized all of this, he moved his whole family to Muscatine County, Iowa. After John’s wife, Mary Jane dies after having another daughter. John was left with nine children. One day while his kid Charles was injured in the chest while playing baseball. A doctor came, examined him, and said he was going to have to get to California.
Once John heard that he hurried to take his family to California to get his son Charles to a doctor but eleven days after they got there his kid Charles died. Once his son died, he decided to move to California and stay there and lived but his children had to stay in a Protestant Orphan Asylum until he was able to provide them with a home. After being there for a short while he meet Jack London’s mom Flora. He liked that she could sew fine shirts and decided that she would make the perfect wife for his kids. John’s two girls were happy when they found out about Miss Flora.
They saw here as the same size as them and she was not all that pretty. John London was a very kind, gentle, high morals, stability, and a hard worker. The first time John London meet Jacks mom was while she was making shirts for Alonzo Prentiss. He treated Jack as his own child and he and Jack would team up to take on Floras fits and outburst. As Jack London grew older he started to buy homes, and boats. Then he started to take cruises and trip as well. His first house he ever bought was Wolf House, and Beauty Ranch. His first boat, the Snark, was a sailboat that he had built for himself.
He loved to spend his time out on the water simply cruising around as well as spying for U. S. military (Kingman). In 1990, London married Bess Maddern. Bess and London had two daughters by the names of Joan and Bess. However, this marriage did not last long. Only five years after their marriage, London had an affair and divorced Bess. Shortly after the divorce, he was remarried to Charmain Kittredge. Kittredge became the persona for many of London’s female characters. Kittredge often joined him on his many travel ventures. They were very good for each other because he also encouraged her writing career as well as she did his (Kingman).
Mainly beginning in his thirties, London encountered poor health. Sometimes during his thirties, London encountered kidney failure from no apparent cause. London died from renal failure on November 22, 1916 on his ranch, Beauty Ranch. Jack London – his life and books “I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze Than it should be stifled by dry rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, Every atom of me in magnificent glow, Than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time”
Jack London (1876 – 1916) This simple quote from Jack London says a lot for his life. It is, in one paragraph, exactly how jack London viewed life. Even as he continued to get older, his life never got less interesting. He always seemed to remain more commonly outside of the United States because of how many different languages it was published in. Study of his life and writings provides a case through which different languages he was published in. study of his life and writings provides a case through which to examine the contradictions in the American character, along with key movements and ideas prominent during the Progressive era.
Following London’s death, he was portrayed as an alcoholic womanizer in a biological myth. Recent scholarship based upon firsthand documents challenges his character. Nevertheless, its persistence has resulted in neglect of his full literary oeuvre and his significance as a seminal figure in turn-of-the-century social history. Work Sited Kingman, Russ. A Pictorial Life of Jack London Crown, 1979. Stasz, Clarice Jack London’s Women University of Massachusetts Press, 2001.
