Jack London - Biography (english)

THE MOSCOW STATE LIIVERSITY JACK LONDON b. 1876 d. 1916 Report by Andrey Krechetov, 103 а норв MOSCOW 0 Jack London is thepseudonym of John Griffith Chaney. John was born Jan. 12, 1876 in San Francisco California, USA and died Nov. 22, 1916 in Glen Ellen California . His father was a rovingastrologer, who deserted when the Jack was a little boy. London was raised by his religious mother and his stepfather.Jack took hisstepfather s surname, London.

When London was 14 he had toquit grammar school to escape poverty. The boy was looking for adventures. Hegot a sloop and explored San Francisco Bay, working for the government fishpatrol. Later London went to Japan as a sailor. When he returned,he moved around the the United States, since London became member of one of themany protest armies of unemployed. John was a hobo riding freight trains. He saw the depression. Later he was taken upfor vagrancy.All these made London turn to militant socialism.

John London educated himself atpublic libraries. He read the works of Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, FriedrichNietzsche. These books formed a mixture of socialism and white superiorityideas in London s mind. When Jack was 19, he crammed afour-year high school course into one year and managed to enter the Universityof California at Berkeley.After a year of studying he quit school and went to Canada, joiningtheKlondike gold rush of 1897. Hereturned the next year, still poor and jobless. He decided to earn his livingas a writer.

London studied some literarymagazines and set himself a daily schedule of writing sonnets, ballads, jokes,anecdotes, adventure stories, horrorstories, etc. His output steadily increased.The optimism and energy with whichhe attacked his task could be seen in his autobiographical novel Martin Eden 1909 , which is his most enduring work. His stories of his Alaskanadventures were often crude, but withintwo years began to win acceptance for their fresh subject matter and virileforce.

London published his first book The Son of theWolf in 1900, and he gained a wide audience. In the next 17 years ofhis life he completed 50 books, mostly fiction. Londonbecame the highest-paid writer in the United States.However, his expenditureswere higher than his earnings, and he always had to write for money. London was still hungry fornew adventures to discribe in his novels He sailed a ketch to the SouthPacific, and in 1911 he told about his voyage in The Cruise of the Snark 1911 . In 1910 London finally settledon a ranch near Glen Ellen. He built his famous Wolf House, where he spent therest of his life, maintaining his socialist beliefs almost to the end of hislife.

Jack London wrote stories ofvery high quality. His best works are Alaskan stories Call of the Wild 1903 , White Fang 1906 , Burning Daylight 1910 , in which he dramatizedin turn atavism, adaptability, and the appeal of the wilderness.

He wrote hewrote two more autobiographical novels The Road 1907 and John Barleycorn 1913 . Of his philosophic works the most important are The Sea Wolf 1904 , featuring a Nietzschean supermanhero, and TheIron Heel 1907 , which is afantasy of the future that is a terrifying anticipation of fascism. London lost his reputation inthe United States in the 1920s when a brilliant new generation of postwarwriters made the prewar writersseem lacking in sophistication.However, his popularity has remainedhigh throughout the world, especially in Russia, where a commemorative editionof his works published in 1956 was reported to have been sold out in fivehours.

London is one of the most extensively translated ofAmerican authors. In 1988 a three-volumeset of his letters was published. Jack London is one of the most popular American writers in the world. His vivid, brutal andexiting style is the key to the popularity.