The World of Jack London,

The Call of the Wild, and White Fang

1876	John Griffith London is born January 12 in San Francisco to Flora Wellman Chaney. Flora marries John London on September 7.
1878—1886	The Londons move around California as John looks for work on farms and ranches. Flora and John’s schemes to make money fail. In 1886 the Londons settle in Oakland, where young Jack works odd jobs and spends his free time in the Oakland Public Library reading novels and travelogues.
1891	London works in a cannery. He borrows money to buy a sloop, the Razzle-Dazzle, and sails through San Francisco Bay raiding oyster beds.
1892	London goes to work for the California Fish Patrol.
1893	A seven-month voyage aboard the sealing vessel Sophia Sutherland takes London to Hawaii, the Bonin Islands, Japan, and the Bering Sea. At sea, London begins to write, and his experiences inspire a piece of short fiction, “Story of a Typhoon off the Coast of Japan,” that wins first prize in a writing contest sponsored by the San Francisco Morning Call. The Panic of 1893 grips the country, and the growing use of machinery and the depressed economy lead to the unemployment of vast numbers of American workers.
1894	London joins Kelly’s Army, the western branch of a band of unemployed men known as Coxey’s Army, on a march to Washington, D.C., to protest economic conditions. He leaves the march before reaching Washington and makes his way north to Buffalo, New York, where he is arrested for vagrancy and spends a month in the Erie County Penitentiary. During his imprisonment, London formulates a social philosophy informed by the ideas of Karl Marx and Friedrich Nietzsche.
1895	London attends Oakland High School and publishes in school publications.
1896	London joins the Socialist Labor Party. He attends the University of California at Berkeley for one semester.
1897	London joins the Klondike Gold Rush and spends the winter in the Yukon.
1898	Upon returning from his unsuccessful Klondike trip, London devotes himself to writing.
1899	London sells his story “To the Man on the Trail,” one of many pieces that will appear in magazines and newspapers.
1900	London marries Bessie Mae Maddern. The Son of the Wolf, a collection of Klondike tales, is published.
1901	Joan, the London’s first daughter, is born January 15. The God of His Fathers, more stories about the Klondike, is published.
1902	London spends six weeks in the East End of London, accumulating material for his The People of the Abyss, a sociological study of the slums that is published in 1903. His second daughter, Becky, is born October 20. Children of the Frost, another collection of Klondike tales, is published.
1903	London falls in love with Charmian Kittredge; Bessie and Jack are separated. The Call of the Wild is published to worldwide acclaim.
1904	London covers the Russo-Japanese war as a Hearst correspondent. Bessie files for divorce.
1905	Kittredge and London are married. They purchase 129 acres in Glen Ellen, California, and name the spread “Beauty Ranch”; London uses the ranch to develop a scientific method of farming and to establish a breeding laboratory—ideas informed by his readings of Darwin. London travels through the Midwest and East on a Socialist lecture tour.
1906	London meets Sinclair Lewis at Yale. They subsequently correspond, and London buys a number of plot ideas from Lewis. London falls ill and returns to California, where he covers the San Francisco earthquake for Collier’s. He begins building a sailboat, the Snark, and plans a seven-year voyage around the world. Moon-Face and Other Stories and White Fang are published.
1907	Charmian and London sail the Snark from Oakland to Hawaii and the Marquesas Islands. Before Adam, a novel set in prehistoric times; Love of Life and Other Stories; and The Road, a biographical look at London’s days as a hobo, are published.
1908	London returns to Oakland briefly to deal with finances, then sails aboard the Snark to Tahiti, the Fiji Islands, the New Hebrides, and the Solomon Islands. In November he falls ill with multiple tropical diseases and is hospitalized in Australia. Iron Heel, a forward-looking novel about the perils of Fascism, is published.
1909	Charmian and Jack return to Oakland via Ecuador, Panama, and New Orleans. Martin Eden, a novel about a seaman who becomes a writer, is published.
1910	London begins plans for Wolf House, a mansion designed to last “a thousand years.” A child, Joy, dies two days after birth. Lost Face, a collection that includes the famous story “To Build a Fire”; Revolution and Other Essays, a collection of London’s thoughts on Socialism; Burning Daylight, a novel about the Klondike Gold Rush; and Theft, a play, are published.
1911	The Londons travel around California and Oregon. The Abysmal Brute, a novel about prizefighting and based on a plot purchased from Sinclair Lewis; When God Laughs and Other Stories; Adventure, a novel; and South Sea Tales are published.
1912	Jack and Charmian sail around Cape Horn aboard the Dirigio. Charmian miscarries again. The House of Pride and Other Tales of Hawaii; A Son of the Sun, another collection of South Sea tales; and Smoke Bellew, stories illustrated by Frederick Remington, are published.
1913	The Prohibition Party and other groups praise “John Barleycorn,” London’s astonishingly honest autobiographical treatise on alcoholism; others see this work as lacking in sincerity. Upton Sinclair noted, “That the work of a drinker who had no intention of stopping drinking should become a major propaganda piece in the campaign for Prohibition is
	surely one of the choice ironies in the history of alcohol.” Fire destroys Wolf House.
1914	London covers the Mexican Revolution for Collier’s, but returns home after a severe attack of dysentery.
1915	London spends time in Hawaii hoping to improve his health. The Star Rover, a novel about reincarnation, is published.
1916	London resigns from the Socialist party in March because of its “loss of emphasis on class struggle.” He suffers sever bouts of uremia and rheumatism, and dies on November 22 of stroke and heart failure, which his physicians attribute to gastrointestinal uremia and renal colic.