People

Jack London

John Griffith London, 1876-1916

Jack London was born Jan. 12, 1876 in San Francisco. London - name of his stepfather, a ruined farmer. When John Chaney was about eight months, his mother remarried and the future writer got a new name - John Griffith London.

Jack London, 9 year old boy.

He prepared independently and passed successfully the entrance exams of the University of California, but after the third semester, due to lack of funds for education, was forced to leave. In the spring of 1897 Jack London succumbed to "gold rush" and went to Alaska. Than back to San Francisco in 1898.

The first literary work of Jack London - essay "Typhoon off the coast of Japan" won first prize and was published on November 12, 1893. After returning from Alaska, he started to pay more attention upon literature. The first northern stories were published in 1899. And in 1900 he had published his first book - a collection of short stories "The Son of the Wolf. " In 1903 a young writer visited London.

His short 40-year life was consist a lot of interesting things: he was a farmer on a ranch in California, worked as a correspondent during the Russian-Japanese War, the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 and the Mexican Revolution, he was a lecturer at Harvard and Yale universities, he also constructed a yacht "The Snark" and tried to circumnavigate the globe on it, he was very seriously ill, and finally, was married two times.

The last years of his life, he suffered from alcoholism. Jack London died on November 22, 1916 (committed suicide) in Glen Ellen, near San Francisco.

Jack London is the author of more than 200 stories, 400 nonfiction works, 20 novels and 3 plays. The most famous series of works is "An Odyssey of the North".

His biography really amazed me. This great man had rather hard life. Unfortunately, he lived inly 40 years, but in this short period of time, he amazed probably not only me, but the whole world.