Jack London, though a successful writer, had by no means an easy life. Though the literary community now remembers London for a mere few outstanding works, he was an influential, looming naturalist writer of the nineteenth century. London’s works surmounted to an estimated fifty novels and hundreds of articles in his lifetime. Jack London would define success as overcoming one’s early life hardships and using those experiences to create works and ideas in the mind of the public to withstand the test of time.
Jack London, born John Griffith Chaney on January 12, 1876 in San Francisco, California, was a key American naturalist author of the nineteenth century (Bio). Though London is now a prominent literary figure, he was by no means an overnight success. London grew up in the
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London, behind the words and persona the public saw, was an abusive alcoholic with profound health problems. “By his death at age forty on November 22, 1916, Jack had been plagued for years by a vast number of health problems, including stomach disturbances, ravaging uremia, and failing kidneys. His death certificate states that he died of uremic poisoning” (Wilson, Margie, and Mike Wilson). Writing seemed to not only be a gift of London’s but an outlet for his evident mortality; this inevitable mortality was a recurring theme in his literature.
Jack London would define success as overcoming hardships and using those experiences to create works and ideas to inspire the public. This is precisely what London achieved in his forty years of life and is the reason his exemplary writing are around today. Though London had a stereotypical writer’s life – due to his struggle with alcoholism and dreams of being a martyr – he without a doubt continues to influence aspiring writers around the world. And though London did not initially crave immortality it is what is gained when one puts pen to paper and thus London successfully lives