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Jack London Facts

Jack London Facts
Jack London was an American author and journalist who became one of the first authors to become famous and wealthy from his fiction alone. He was born John Griffith Chaney on January 12th, 1876 in San Francisco, California to Flora Wellman, a music teacher and spiritualist, and William Chaney, an attorney and pioneer in the field of astrology. His parents were not married so when his mother later married John London, Jack took on his last name. Jack grew up in a working-class family, and found various jobs as a teen to keep busy. He also spent a lot of time in the library reading travel books and novels. After a treacherous voyage on a ship when he was only 17, Jack was encouraged to write his story and enter it into a contest. He won first prize.
Interesting Jack London Facts:
Jack London only completed an eighth-grade education, but beat college students to win the first prize in the writing contest, when he was only 17 years old.
Winning the prize in the writing contest gave Jack London the desire to become a writer.
Jack London tried writing short stories, and enrolled at Berkeley for a brief time before heading to the Yukon during the gold rush.
Jack London returned to California when he was 22 to continue his writing career.
Jack London started having stories published in Overland Monthly in 1899 and set a goal to write at least 1000 words each day.
Jack London's famous novel The Call of the Wild was published in 1903. This book brought him some money and fame. The book was about a dog finding his was as a sled dog, in the Yukon where Jack previously traveled to in an effort to find gold.
Jack London worked as a journalist while writing fiction as well. He worked for Hearst papers in 1904, and covered the Russo-Japanese War.
Jack London only lived to be 40 years old, but wrote a great number of novels, short stories, memoirs, non-fiction, essays, poems, and even plays.
Jack London's most famous novels include The Call of the Wild, White Fang, and The Iron Heel.
Jack London's most famous short stories include To Build a Fire, Love of Life, and An Odyssey of the North.
Jack London's plays include Theft (1910), Daughters of the Rich: A One Act Play (1915), and The Acorn Planter: A California Forest Play (1916).
Jack London married Bess Maddern in 1900. Together they had two daughters Bess and Joan. Their marriage ended in divorce in 1905.
In 1905 Jack London married Charmian Kittredge. They remained together for the rest of his life.
Jack London died from kidney disease on November 22nd, 1916 at his ranch in California at the age of 40.
Mount London on the Alaska-BC boundary is named after Jack London.
Jack London Square in Oakland, California is named after Jack London.
On January 11th, 1986 the US Postal service released a $0.25 stamp in his honor.
There is a lake named after Jack London in Magadan Oblast called Jack London Lake.


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