1913 Since selling his first story (‘To the Man on Trail’) in January 1899, Jack London had written for his living. His work ranged from socialist dystopias such as The Iron Heel to the perennially popular dog-and-wolf story, The Call of the Wild – a work that gave London his nickname, ‘Wolf’. No writer in American literature wrote more profitably. In his last years (he died – by suicide, probably – in 1916, aged just 40) he was earning around $75,000 annually by his pen: in modern currency values about $2 million (and virtually tax-free).
London had taken to himself a handsome new wife (or ‘mate-woman’, as he called her) in 1905. He had high hopes of a Jack London Jr. by her (he had two daughters by his previous marriage). London had also in 1905 bought a property in northern California’s Sonoma County – the beginnings of what he named his ‘Beauty Ranch’.
London developed his ranch with an enthusiasm bordering on obsession. He was infected with the eucalyptus-planting mania that swept California in 1909 in the (false) belief that the eastern US was running out of timber and that ‘Circassian walnut’ (as eucalyptus wood was grotesquely called) would be commercially viable. The following year, London tore up 700 acres of vines and planted 16,000 seedlings on his ranch. Before the mania subsided some years later, London had planted around a quarter of a million trees and spent some $50,000. It was a wholly unprofitable speculation. Glen Ellen wine from London’s ranch sells strongly to this day.
By 1912 Beauty Ranch had expanded to some 1,000 acres. At its centre, London began erecting a mansion to be called ‘Wolf House’. The Spanish tile roof alone cost $3,500, and when finished the house would be a fit habitation for one who had shown himself so indisputably a leader of the human pack.
August 1912 was a month of disaster. On the 12th, London’s wife, Charmian, had a miscarriage. There would be no son to carry on his name. On the very day that the couple intended to move into Wolf House, 22 August, it burned down. The cause – act of God or arson? – was unknown (most plausibly a disaffected workman was responsible).
The event, accompanied by chronic ill health, plunged London into the gloom that intensified over the last four years of his brief, but extraordinarily productive, life.