Jack London

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Jack London

• first millionaire writer in history

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Publishing History

• Published fifty books from 1900-1916
• Only twenty-one are still in print.

1903
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Motto

• Live life to the fullest!
• Explain
• firsthand experience was the only basis for art.

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His Many Hats

• Sailor
• Laborer
• Oyster pirate
• Fish and game warden
• Tramp
• Gold prospector

• Soapbox orator
• War correspondent
• Rancher
• Bohemian
• More!

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His Times

• Post-Victorian
• Pre-Modernist
• Between the Spanish-American War and World War I

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Londons Literary Beginnings

• With help of local librarian, he began to read
• a Great Discovery!
• He found his mindliterally!

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Londons Literary Beginningscontinued

• 1897 joined the gold rush to Klondike
• Determined to tell others what he had seen,
  heard, and lived.

Image of Jack London's cabin as moved, and
reconstructed, in Dawson City, Yukon (2001)
Jack London in the Klondike
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Londons Family
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Londons Family
London and daughter Joan 1902
Daughters Becky and Joan 1913
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Londons Family
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I would rather be ashes than dust! I would
rather that my spark should burn out in a
brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by
dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor,
every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a
sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function
of man is to live, not exist. I shall not waste
my days in trying to prolong them, I shall use
my time." Jack London 1876-1916
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• http//london.sonoma.edu/

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References

• The Collected Jack London. 1992. Barnes and
  Noble Books.