Jack London was an American author and adventurer known for writing adventure novels set in the Klondike Gold Rush such as Call of the Wild. He had a difficult childhood growing up in poverty in San Francisco. As a young man, he lived an adventurous life working as a sailor, gold prospector, war correspondent and experiencing hardship in Alaska. Despite only living until age 40, he wrote many popular novels drawing from his own life experiences and became a renowned and successful author.

1. Jack London

2. Jack London was a man of adventure,
a man of action.
He had a great physical strength, an
intense intellect, and a turbulent
spirit.
He died when he was only forty, but
he accomplished more in this short
lifetime than most men could in
several lifetimes.

3. John Griffith Chaney was his real name.
He was born in San Francisco, California,
in 1876.
His family was very poor so, at the age of
ten, he was on the street selling
newspapers.
His vigorous stories of men and animals
against the environment, and survival
against hardships were drawn mainly from
his own experience.

4. At 17, Jack London shipped
as an able seaman to Japan
and the Bering Sea.
He was an oyster pirate, a
gold-seeker in the first
Klondike rush, a newspaper
correspondent during the
Russo-Japanese War, and
in 1914 a war
correspondent in Mexico.

5. Jack London made his way to the
Klondike Gold Rush in 1897 at the age
of 20. For $25.00 he and his brother-in-
law, "Captain Sheppard," took the S.S.
Utmatilla from San Francisco to Alaska.
They arrived in the Klondike in
the autumn of 1897. London
soon discovered that there was
no Klondike gold.
After suffering a three-month
attack of scurvy, Jack London
returned to Oakland in July of
1898.

7. When he was in Alaska, London met up with
Marshall and Louis Bond, two brothers
whose dog "Jack" was immortalized as
"Buck" in Jack London's great American
classic Call of the Wild.

8. Jack London writing The Sea Wolf, 1904.

10. London’s Personal Life
His first wife, Bessie Maddern, and daughters, Joan and Bess.
The break up of London's marriage was imminent. Bessie
was a fine woman, but they were extremely incompatible.
Jack was struggling with his strong sense of family
responsiblity and an equally strong realization that to
continue living with Bessie was impossible."

11. London’s second wife was Charmian Kittredge

13. The day Jack London sailed from the foot of Broadway for his
South Pacific adventure aboard the "Snark". 1907

14. Jack London died on Wednesday, November
22, 1916.
On November 26, in a silent ceremony,
Charmian London placed her husband's ashes
on the chosen knoll under a large lava rock.
After she passed
away in 1955,
Charmian's ashes
were also laid to
rest under the rock.