The Call of the Wild and White Fang - Jack London [2]
1878—1886 The Londons move around California as John looks for work on farms and ranches. Flora and John’s schemes to make money fail. In 1886 the Londons settle in Oakland, where young Jack works odd jobs and spends his free time in the Oakland Public Library reading novels and travelogues.
1891 London works in a cannery. He borrows money to buy a sloop, the Razzle-Dazzle, and sails through San Francisco Bay raiding oyster beds.
1892 London goes to work for the California Fish Patrol.
1893 A seven-month voyage aboard the sealing vessel Sophia Sutherland takes London to Hawaii, the Bonin Islands, Japan, and the Bering Sea. At sea, London begins to write, and his experiences inspire a piece of short fiction, “Story of a Typhoon off the Coast of Japan,” that wins first prize in a writing contest sponsored by the San Francisco Morning Call. The Panic of 1893 grips the country, and the growing use of machinery and the depressed economy lead to the unemployment of vast numbers of American workers.
1894 London joins Kelly’s Army, the western branch of a band of unemployed men known as Coxey’s Army, on a march to Washington, D.C., to protest economic conditions. He leaves the march before reaching Washington and makes his way north to Buffalo, New York, where he is arrested for vagrancy and spends a month in the Erie County Penitentiary. During his imprisonment, London formulates a social philosophy informed by the ideas of Karl Marx and Friedrich Nietzsche.
1895 London attends Oakland High School and publishes in school publications.
1896 London joins the Socialist Labor Party. He attends the University of California at Berkeley for one semester.
1897 London joins the Klondike Gold Rush and spends the winter in the Yukon.
1898 Upon returning from his unsuccessful Klondike trip, London devotes himself to writing.
1899 London sells his story “To the Man on the Trail,” one of many pieces that will appear in magazines and newspapers.
1900 London marries Bessie Mae Maddern. The Son of the Wolf, a collection of Klondike tales, is published.
1901 Joan, the London’s first daughter, is born January 15. The God of His Fathers, more stories about the Klondike, is published.
1902 London spends six weeks in the East End of London, accumulating material for his The People of the Abyss, a sociological study of the slums that is published in 1903. His second daughter, Becky, is born October 20. Children of the Frost, another collection of Klondike tales, is published.
1903 London falls in love with Charmian Kittredge; Bessie and Jack are separated. The Call of the Wild is published to worldwide acclaim.
1904 London covers the Russo-Japanese war as a Hearst correspondent. Bessie files for divorce.
1905 Kittredge and London are married. They purchase 129 acres in Glen Ellen, California, and name the spread “Beauty Ranch”; London uses the ranch to develop a scientific method of farming and to establish a breeding laboratory—ideas informed by his readings of Darwin. London travels through the Midwest and East on a Socialist lecture tour.
1906 London meets Sinclair Lewis at Yale. They subsequently correspond, and London buys a number of plot ideas from Lewis. London falls ill and returns to California, where he covers the San Francisco earthquake for Collier’s. He begins building a sailboat, the Snark, and plans a seven-year voyage around the world. Moon-Face and Other Stories and White Fang are published.
1907 Charmian and London sail the Snark from Oakland to Hawaii and the Marquesas Islands. Before Adam, a novel set in prehistoric times; Love of Life and Other Stories; and The Road, a biographical look at London’s days as a hobo, are published.
1908 London returns to Oakland briefly to deal with finances, then sails aboard the Snark to Tahiti, the Fiji Islands, the New Hebrides, and the Solomon Islands. In November he falls ill with multiple tropical diseases and is hospitalized in Australia. Iron Heel, a forward-looking novel about the perils of