The document provides biographical information about author Jack London and summarizes some of his major works. It notes that London drew from his life experiences, including working as an oyster pirate and sailor, prospecting in Alaska during the Gold Rush, and later being a war correspondent. Some of his most famous works inspired by these experiences include The Sea-Wolf, Martin Eden, White Fang, and other short stories about the Alaska gold prospecting era. The document recommends reading some of London's novels and stories to get a sense of his writing inspired by his adventurous and widely traveled life.

2. The aim of the presentation is
to relate some facts of
biography with works and
interest the audience in
reading at least one of the
works of Jack London.

3. Family
John Griffith London (1876-
1916) was born in San
Francisco of an unmarried
mother of wealthy background,
Flora Wellman. His father may
have been William Chaney, a
journalist, lawyer, and major
figure in the development of
American astrology. Late in
1876, Flora married John
London, a partially disabled
Civil War veteran.

4. All his works are based on his life
experience. He changed many
places of employment starting by
being ‘oyster pirate’. All these
episodes of his life were somehow
reflected in his works. In 1893 he
was recruited as a sailor which
effected him a lot. This first
voyage was a base for some of
his famous novels – ‘The Sea-
wolf’ and ‘Martin Eden’. In the
same year his first sketch
‘Typhoon off the Coast of Japan’
came out. He was even
imprisoned and joined American
Social party for a while.

5. Alaska
His life extremely changed in 1897 when
he yielded to Gold Rush and left to
Alaska. Alaska hasn’t gave him gold, it’s
done better – Alaska gave him characters
of his future tales and novels. After
having returned back from Alaska London
has begun to write in a professional way.
His first northern tales were published in
1899 and his first book – ‘Son of the wolf’
– was published in 1900. This northern
experience gave us such collected
stories as ‘God of his father’s’, ‘Children
of the frost’, ‘Moonface’ and such novels
as ‘Daughter of the shows’ and ‘White
fang’. These works made him extremely
popular. He worked about 17 hours a day
and for all hid short career he wrote
about 40 books.

6. Success
After creating all these work he began to get about $70 000 for a
novel, but was not enough for him. In 1904-05 he worked as war
correspondent at Russo-Japanese war. Money helped him to
make a world tour which he was dreaming about.
Here is the short list of his works:

8. The film follows the adventures of
the writer-adventurer Jack London
(Michael O'Shea) who was, among
other things, oyster pirate, hobo,
sailor, prospector and war
correspondent.

9. Films
It’s known about one hundred films based on Jack London’s novels.
Once he even played a role in first screening of his novel ‘The sea-wolf’.
It was popular in the USSR to make these films:
‘White fang’ , ‘’

10. Literature about Jack London
• Irving Stone – Sailor on Horseback
(1938)
• Will Bikov – On the track of Jack
London
• Alexandr Rosin – House of the Wolf

11. Jack London’s Lake is a lake in Magadan, one of the most beautiful lakes
of Far East. Its name was given to it because of the book that was found
on the shore of the lake, it was ‘Martin Eden’.
According to another version, many geologists loved novels of Jack
London and named this lake after him.

12. Quotations:
• Life? Bah! It has no value. Of cheap things it is the cheapest.
The Sea-Wolf" (1904)
• Life achieves its summit when it does to the uttermost that
which it was equipped to do. White Fang (1906)
• Life is not always a matter of holding good cards, but
sometimes, playing a poor hand well. As quoted in Sacred Journey
of the Peaceful Warrior (1991)
• Age is never so old as youth would measure it. "The Wit of
Porportuk" in The Best Short Stories of Jack London (1962)
• There are things greater than our wisdom, beyond our justice.
The right and wrong of this we cannot say, and it is not for us to
judge. "An Odyssey of the North" in The Best Short Stories of Jack
London (1962)

13. To sum up I can recommend to read such novels like ‘White Fang’, ‘Martin
Eden’, ‘The hearts of three’, ‘Red Plague’, ‘Love of life’ and especially the short
story ‘When gods laugh’.

14. Links:
World of Jack London
Notable biographies
explore north
Anastasia Kryuchkova, 202