Postbellum Era |
Major Works
Family
Homes
Chronology
Occupations
Resources Jack London
International, http://www.jack-london.org
is a site where a vast amount of information by and on Jack London can be
found. It has links to essays about or related to London, links to a timeline
that is extensive, a photo gallery, works by and about his family, a
bookstore where his works can be purchased, and links to other relevant
sites. Literature Network http://www.literature-web.net/london
provides links to many of London’s fiction novels and short stories. It has a
well-written biography and overview of his works. It also has a search engine
for searching other sites or keywords related to London. Many of the works
found here are difficult to locate elsewhere, so this is a helpful site. Jack London: A Bibliography. Hensley C. Woodbridge, John London, & George H. Tweney. Georgetown, California: Talisman Press, 1966. Enlarged edition, Millwood, New York: Kraus Reprint, 1973. Collection of over 4,000 entries of London’s work of publications, reprints, and translations. Included are articles and books about London written in English and in foreign languages. This collection includes reviews and comments of London’s books and short stories. The Plays of Jack London. New York: Ironweed Press, Inc., 2000 This is a complete collection of London’s
plays with an Original Publication Source guide that shows where, when and by
whom each play was published. It also has a Selected Bibliography showing the
titles, dates, and classifications of works by London. It has a wonderful
introduction by Clay Reynolds that offers interesting insight on London and
his works. A Pictorial Life of Jack
London. Russ Kingman. New York: Crown Publishers, Inc.,
1979. This is a wonderful collection of photographs that capture London,
his adventures, family, and friends as he traveled the world. It contains
photographs of places, things, and people he was close while showing both his
serious and carefree side. This book allows readers to get a peek into the
life of an extraordinary author. No Mentor But Myself. Edited by Dale
L. Walker. Port Washington, N.Y.: National University Publications, 1979 This has a
collection of articles, essays, reviews, and letters on writing and writers
by London. It includes works on philosophy, editorial crimes, tragic fiction,
and animals. There is a review of The Jungle and letters to
Joseph Conrad. This contains a variety of works covering a wide range of
topics. Tools of My Trade: The Annotated Books in Jack London’s Library. David Mike
Hamilton, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1986. This is a collection of comments on 400 books in Jack
London’s personal library. Included is the relationship to particular works.
There is also a complete guide to the intellectual influences to London and their
influence to or in his work. . |
Jack London
(12
January 1876-22 November 1916) “No literary historian but sooner or later must reckon with Jack London.” Fred Lewis (1902) Life Jack London, born John Griffith Chaney, was born in San Francisco to a spiritualist, Flora Wellman, and a journalist/astrologer, William Chaney, who denied Jack as his son. Jack grew up in Oakland, California, on the waterfront, which sparked his love for the sea, sailing, and adventure. Elaine Slivinski Lisandrelli noted that Jack would accompany his sister to school and by “five was reading and writing”(19). Although he had little formal schooling, he was an avid reader stating, “I read mornings, afternoons and nights. I read in bed, I read at table, I read as I walked to and from school, and I read at recess while other boys were playing” (19). Jack received most of his education from public libraries. He held a variety of jobs ranging from an oyster pirate, sailor, railroad hobo, gold prospector, war correspondent, rancher, socialist orator and writer. These occupations would later be incorporated into many of his writings. London married Bessie Mae Maddern, his earlier tutor, and had two children
with her. Their marriage was short lived and they divorced in 1905. Two
months after the divorce Jack married Clara Kittredge. They had a child, but
it only survived for 38 hours. Clara would accompany London on many of his
worldwide adventures and aid him with his writing. He encouraged her writing
and she later published three books about their life together and the
adventures they shared. It is interesting to note that London had a strict rule to write one thousand words a day. By following this rule for seventeen years, London was able to produce a large amount of works ranging from short stories to novels, essays to plays, and almost everything he composed sold. Philip S. Foner emphasized London also believed there were “four necessities to becoming, being, and remaining a great writer: good health, work, a philosophy of life, and sincerity” (33). If you have them all you would prosper as a writer, if you lacked any you would have a difficult task ahead of you. Much of his work was based on his early occupations and numerous adventure
experiences. His experience as an oyster pirate was later fictionalized in The
Cruise of the Dazzler (1902) and Tales of the Fish Patrol (1905).
Life as a sailor loaned material for his novel The Sea-Wolf (1904),
and his first published piece of work “Story of a Typhoon off the Coast of
Japan” in 1893. He won first prize, $25.00, and Elaine Slivinski Lisandrelli
pointed out that he won over students from “prestigious institutions like
Stanford University and the University of California at Berkeley” (33). His
tramping experiences were later recounted in The Road (1007), and his
adventures in the Yukon and Klondike inspired his three most recognized
works, Call of
the Wild(1903), White Fang (1906),
and his short story, To
Build a Fire (1902). Many of his other works were based on social and
cultural issues. Dr. Clarice Stasz found it interesting and noteworthy that
London was extremely instrumental in “breaking the taboo over leprosy and
popularizing Hawaii as a tourist spot” (2) with his works about the Hawaiian
Islands, Mauki
and The South Sea Tales (1911), and his stay in the leper colony of
Molokai, Koolau the
Leper. His socialist views were presented in his novel The Iron
Heel (1906), and the
suffrage of women was the emphasis in Women and The Scorn of Women. London’s adventures to the South Seas inspired a new collection of works and a new Mother lode of material. Thomas R. Tietze and Gary Riedl noted that with these experiences London became “fascinated with race, culture, justice, and heroism…accurately and consistently showed the islanders as individuals who had to deal, in one way or another, with white intrusions: capitalist brutality, inhumane legal systems, foreign diseases, and racist social practices. Throughout these tales stab, with an irony born of conviction, at the comfortable paternalism of whites toward people of color” (1). These stories dealt more with people as individuals and as part of a culture. Their goal was to explain the inner being and the effects of outside influence, both in positive and negative ways, and the outcome of that influence on the person and culture. King Hendricks called London a “master craftsman of a short story” because he “had the ability to create a strong narrative, to create marvelous story atmosphere, to infuse into it graphic descriptions that pertain to the characters and the events” (10). It was these abilities that captivated readers and made him, according to Philip S. Foner, one of the “best selling, highest paid and most popular American authors of his time” (127). London’s writings have been translated into some ninety languages, and he remains one of the most read authors in the world. It was this popularity as an author that led his career to branch out into other medias. Dr. Clarice Stasz pointed out that London was “among the first writers to work with the movie industry. His novel The Sea-Wolf became the basis for the first full-length American movie” (2). He was also, according to a wed site article entitled Who was Jack London?, one of the “first celebrities used to endorse commercial products, such a grape juice and men’s suits” (2). Earle Labor was amazed at the sheer number of works London produced, noting that “in less that two decades he produced two hundred short stories, four hundred nonfiction pieces, and fifty novels, and the topics ranged from architecture, economics, socialism, seafaring, homelessness and the prison system” (vol.78, 248). Journalism
London’s brush with journalism
came mainly in the form of a war correspondent, but he also submitted
articles for magazines. He wrote for or was published in some of the most
prestigious magazines and newspapers of the time. He published in the San
Francisco Examiner and The Boston Transcript, and some of his
articles could be read in magazines like The Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s
Bazaar, Colliers, and Cosmopolitan. In November 1898 London sold his first short story to Overland Monthly. In January 1900 London found national acclaim when the Atlantic Monthly published one of his stories. From here London’s career was off and running. In 1902 London was hired by the American Press Association to travel to South Africa and interview famous officers who fought in the Boer War. The trip was cancelled so London decided to travel to London, England. Here he gathered material composed The People of the Abyss (1903), a journalistic report on the poor and homeless in London. The purpose of this work was to depict the worst of human conditions and the affect it has on man and society as well as urge readers to consider the suffering of others. Elaine Slivinski commented on the fact “to compile material for this work London lived as the subjects he was studying did. He stood in breadlines, joined them in the workhouse, and observed the authorities running them off of park benches” (67). Philip Foner pointed out that London was “interested not only in exposing cruelties and oppressions in the economic system, but in remaking it and building a new and better social society” (6). It was this theme presented in much of London’s journalism. In 1904 Hearst hired London as a
war correspondent in the Russo-Japanese War. He was on his first news
assignment with no experience as a reporter, but London was in high spirits.
He arrived in Korea to the dissatisfying news that he could go no further.
This was not seen as an obstacle and London sailed himself to Japan. He was
the only Western reporter to reach the front lines, with only rice paper to
write on, but his pictures were the first such pictures of the war to arrive
in the United States. After an incident in Japan, which was resolved by
intervention from Theodore Roosevelt, London returned to San Francisco. In 1912 London signed a contract with Cosmopolitan agreeing to pay $1000 dollars for one story a month for five years and he would receive $12,000 dollars for one novel a year.1914 brought another position as a war correspondent, this time with Colliers, covering the Mexican Revolution. It was this war coverage that London received criticism from his employers. According to Philip S. Foner, most of his correspondences showed sympathy for the Mexicans and their cause. London “saw nothing in the Mexican Revolution other than the universal desire to rob, pillage, and loot” (116). Although London was a journalist, he saw no need in covering material based on the constraints of journalism. He instead wrote on what he thought was important to man and society. He covered topics that most would not cover and from perspectives that may have been controversial. Robert H. Woodward noted that London was considered an ““amateur journalist”, someone who is a journalist solely for the love of it, profit is not the motive, and journalism is more like a hobby” (1). London used it as a hobby, but also used it to make a living, traveling around the world is not free. Intersection of literature and journalism London dabbled in both journalism and literature throughout his career. He did not favor one over the other because he had the best of both worlds. He was able to write freely and travel while getting paid and published. The crossover between his journalism and literature in undistinguishable because his themes were about the human condition in an indifferent environment. He wanted to not only depict the external, immediate situation journalism provides, but the internal, complex happenings literature allows for. He did not just want to “cover the story” from a journalistic perspective and have to leave out the human emotions, neither did he want to be flamboyant and stray from the path that literature could take him down. His preferred theme, environmental determinism, is present in both
his literature and his journalism. Many of his books focused on the
characters attempting to over come the environment they found themselves.
This environment was usually nature. Call of the Wild, White Fang, and
To Build a Fire are examples of this theme in his literature. His
journalism focused on the same theme, but instead of nature being the
environment, the environment was of he man made type. London’s journalistic
report The People of the Abyss is a good example because it is an account
of the homeless trying to overcome the perils of city life and the hardships
they aced because of man made obstacles. Another example would be the war
correspondents from the Mexican Revolution. These correspondents sided with
the Mexicans and their attempt to gain independence from the man made
oppressive government they were under. King Hendricks said, in reference to London’s theme of environmental determinism, anyone who knew London noticed that he “loved life and he lived it as fully and as completely as any man. He admired men who cling or have clung to life in times of adversity. The love of life is a theme that runs through many of his novels and short stories. It is the theme of man enduring unbelievable suffering and hardship but tenaciously clinging to life” (18). He also allowed his readers, of either his literature or journalism, a chance to get a glimpse into the situation he witnessed or of situations few would be able to witness. They were situations he witnessed because he rarely wrote about events he did not have personal knowledge about. He wanted not only to entice readers to experience the events he was conveying, but if they could not, then he wanted to present an accurate and detailed description. As was noted, King Hendricks called London a “master craftsman of a short story” because he “had the ability to create a strong narrative, to create marvelous story atmosphere, to infuse into it graphic descriptions that pertain to the characters and the events” (10). This was evident in both his literature and journalism. London also used his literature and journalism to cover not only “American”, but also the world. His early occupations gave material to write about the people and places around the country, Washington, Alaska, and California to name a few, and his later work took readers to exotic places, including Hawaii, London, Japan and Russia. He gave accurate and lively descriptions of the people, the culture, government, and environment in both American in thorough out the world. London was using both journalism and literature to satisfy his preferred lifestyle.
Clay Reynolds remarked that London “regarded himself as someone who could and
would write almost anything for money” (7). This is true in that London loved
the adventure, but he also did used journalism to pay off debts or get quick
money to continue traveling. Ending on a personal note
Charmian London quoted when news hit the world that London had died, “one admirer wrote: To me it seems like having a light turned off, with too few already burning, leaving the road darker and more dismal and difficult.”” (394). Works Cited Fogel, Daniel, “London, Jack,” World Book Online Americas Edition, http://www.aolsvc.worldbook.aol.com/wbol/wbPage/na/as/cp/329620, February 6, 2002. Foner, Philip S., Jack London: American Rebel. New York: Vail-Ballou, Inc., 1947. Hendricks, King. Jack London: Master Craftsman of the Short
Story. Logan, Utah: Faculty
Association Utah State University, 1966. Labor, Earle, Jack London.
Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 8, 12, 78. New York: Crown, 1979. Lisandrelli, Elaine Slivinski. Jack London: A Writer’s Adventurous
Life. Berkeley Heights, New
Jersey: Enslow Publishers, Inc., 1999. London, Charmian. The Book of Jack London. New York: Century co., 1921, vol. 2. London, Jack. Plays of Jack London. New York: Ironweed, Inc., 2002. Stasz, Dr. Clarice, Jack [John Griffith] London, August 19, 2001, http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/london/jack.html, January 18, 2002. Tietze, Thomas R. & Riedl, Gary. “Jack London and the South Seas”. Document maintained at
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/London/ by the SunSITE Manager. August 21, 1996. Woodward, Robert. Jack London and the Amateur Press. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wolf House Books, 1983. Who was Jack London? http://www.getyourwordsworth.com/WORDSWORTH-Jack
London.html January 18, 2002 Discussion Questions 1.What do many people think of
when they are asked, “who is Jack London?”” Why do they think what they
think? 2.What were some of London’s
themes? Why do you think he was concerned with these issues? 3.Does London seem arrogant? Why or why not? |
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