How the Life of Jack London Impacted His Work Jack London was an author and a journalist who wrote many novels, short stories and essays. He was one of the pioneers of fictitious short stories for magazines and newspapers. Two of Jack’s most famous works are “The Call of the Wild” and “To Build a Fire”. (The Jack London Online Collection, n.d.) Jack London was born, John Griffith Chaney on January 12, 1876, in San Francisco, California. He was the son of Flora Wellman and William Chaney, an Astrologer; however history states they were never married and that Jack’s father rejected any responsibility for the child. Flora Wellman the same year Jack was born got married to John London, a veteran of the civil war, from whom jack acquired his official …show more content…
Jack was married to Bess Maddern in 1900 and they had two daughters, Joan and Bess. The marriage suffered due to the fact, that, they were not in love and incompatible. Jack and Bess divorced in 1904 and he then proceeded to work part of that year as a war correspondent, covering the Russo-Japanese conflict. He eventually married the love of his life, Charmian Kittredge in 1905 and they remained together until his death in 1916. Jack and Charmian lived on their Sonoma ranch and shared many adventures travelling and sailing together. “Between 1900 and 1916 he completed more than 50 fiction and non-fiction books, hundreds of short stories and numerous articles” (Jack London - A Brief Biography, 2014a) In my opinion Jack’s writings bore the influence of his life experiences, for example ‘War’ was probably written based on civil war stories his stepfather shared with him. The material for other works like, Klondike; The league of the old men; White fang and Call of the wild were drawn from the months he worked in Klondike (Yukon), Alaska, during the gold rush