Jack and Charmian London
A Mini-Biography

Progenitors of Jack

Jack London? Oh, yeah. Wasn't he the fellow who was raised in poverty and worked for a few cents an hour in a canning factory? Didn't he run away to sea and later became a hobo and went gold prospecting in Alaska? And of course, he finally wrote a nice kids' book about a dog that decides he preferred to live wild and free.

Weeeeeeeeellllllllll, yes and no.

Actually John Griffith London missed being part of the privileged class by the proverbial gnat's whisker. His mom, Flora Wellman, was born in 1843 into the well-to-do family of Marshall and Eleanor Wellman in Massillon, Ohio. Massillon is near Canton and was an important port on the Ohio and Erie Canal (not to be confused with the Erie Canal of the famous folk song). Marshall was a prominent (and wealthy) businessman who had many irons in the fire. His interests included canal building, banking, and wheat distribution.

Flora's family were also the early 19th century's version of bleeding heart liberals. They believed in public education for all, suffrage for women, and advocated temperance (yes, at the time temperance was a "liberal" view). They were also staunch abolitionists, and the home of Flora's uncle was a station on the Underground Railroad.

When Flora was four her mother died, and her dad soon remarried. Flora had difficulties with the new situation, and one author has said that Flora "terrorized" her stepmother. But the family made sure their daughter received a good education, particularly in music.

At age twelve Flora fell ill with a condition which like most 19h century diseases is only vaguely described. Some authors suggest it was typhus and others that it was typhoid (which are not the same illness). In any case, Flora lost a lot of her hair, and the disease was also blamed on her not growing beyond five feet. Well, maybe. But this was also a time when people were of smaller stature and grown women under five feet were by no means uncommon.

Then when Flora was fifteen years old, one of the frequent 19th century recessions - then called "panics" - whacked the family fortune. Whether the loss of familial affluence was a factor or not, the next year Flora left home. Again we suspect personal difficulties were at work as she drifted back and forth between the homes of her older married sisters. This was in 1858.

Then with the onset of the Civil War, Flora joined the United States Sanitary Commission. This was an organization similar to the Red Cross and was intended to care for the sick and wounded of the Union Army.

After the war Flora seems to have returned home only sporadically if at all. There may have been an additional wedge between her and her proper Protestant family when Flora became a devoted follower of spiritualism.

Spiritualism as we know it arose in late 1840's when two young girls, Maggie and Kate Fox, learned they could freak out their parents by tying an apple to a string and bumping the floor and by cracking their toes. Although forty years later Maggie admitted it was all a prank (and would demonstrate how she did it), the fervor never died down, and Flora became an early believer.

After the war Flora dropped from sight for eight years. Then in 1873 she emerges in Seattle as a boarder at the home of Henry Yesler. Henry was one of Seattle's prominent businessmen (and later mayor). He also seems to have known the Wellmans back in Ohio. So Flora ending up in the Yesler household is by no means remarkable.

The Yesler family also held decidedly progressive views. They saw no problem in a bit of discrete free love, and Henry's wife, Sarah, is reported to harbor no prejudices against same gender relationships. They were also firm believers, not just in spiritualism, but in astrology as well. And one of their frequent guests was a fortune teller and lecturer on the occult named William Chaney.

Flora and William became a pair and eventually they moved to San Francisco. By the mid-1870's they had, well, "set-up housekeeping" together. There was probably no formal solemnizing of their vows, although some commentators caution against jumping to conclusions because most of San Francisco's public records burned up in 1906.

William had what we call a past (a past which included three wives). Some accounts say he studied law in Wheeling, Virginia (ergo, before it was in West Virginia), but others doubt it. Still William became an persuasive speaker, and around 1866 he was living in New York. There he teamed up with a British physician and astrologer, Dr. Luke Broughton. The two men told fortunes and cast horoscopes for an evidently well-to-do and credulous clientele.

Their business was thriving but soon there was a backlash against spiritualism. It seems more and more people were seeing astrologers and spiritualist as nothing but a bunch of hucksters who preyed on bereaved families. In some towns fortune telling was outlawed altogether, and at one point William spent nearly a month in jail.

With not much future on the East Coast, William told his current (that is, his third) wife that he was going to scout out other opportunities. After traveling about in the Pacific Northwest, William naturally gravitated to Seattle where he met the Yeslers and Flora.

William and Flora's time in San Francisco seems to have gone smoothy - for a little while. However Flora soon told him that they were expecting what is usually called a happy event. William, though, didn't think there was much to celebrate since he believed that Flora's condition was not from his own efforts.

Whatever the truth of the matter, in the summer of 1875 the San Francisco Chronicle ran a story of how William had beaten Flora and cast her aside. Flora then twice attempted suicide, once with laudanum (opium in alcohol) and again with a pistol (which misfired). There's some suspicion that Flora's actions were intended to make a point rather than be effective. Nevertheless, the story was picked up by the wire services and reached William's family in the East. His wife had already written for him not to come back, and his other relatives refused to have anything more to do with him.

But the citizens of San Francisco had something to do with him. Or at least some of them vowed to hang him from a lamppost. William quickly made his escape and eventually married two more times. He kept earning his living by casting horoscopes and speaking on astrology. He even wrote a how-to book for would-be fortune tellers, and ended up in Chicago where he died in 1903 age 83.

The Early Years

John Griffith Chaney (as he was named) was born on January 12, 1876, exactly seventy-six years before another interesting event. In some accounts you read that Flora did her best to provide for Jack and encouraged his quick and inquiring mind. Others say she wanted nothing to do with him. Or perhaps the childbirth had simply left her too ill to care for him. But we do know in his early years that Jack's upbringing was turned over to the African American family of Alonzo and Virginia Prentiss.

Virginia (better known as Jenny) was a former slave. She and Alonzo treated young Jack as one of their own. Flora provided some compensation by making clothes for the Prentisses. In his later years, Jack not only kept in touch with Jenny but gave her financial support.

The Prentisses made no bones of their pride in their African heritage, and they were prosperous. Alonzo had steady employment as a carpenter, and one of his clients was John London, a widower and Union veteran. John seemed like a nice enough chap and Alonzo and Virginia introduced him to Flora. On February 14, 1877, the two were married.

John had been wounded in the war, and despite at times disabling injuries, he managed various enterprises ranging from store keeping to farming to produce marketing. Flora also took in boarders and gave music lessons. Gradually young Jack returned home where he was largely cared for by his step-sister, Eliza who was John's elder daughter by his first marriage. The Prentisses still lived nearby and Jack was in and out of both households.

Although Flora has sometimes been pictured as an indifferent and uncaring mother, she clearly recognized Jack's precociousness. She had taught him to read at an early age, maybe as early as four. So Jack was well prepared when he entered primary school.

When Jack wasn't at school, one of his jobs was to take a pail of beer to the farm for John to refresh himself after a morning's work. Once out of curiosity Jack took a few sips. Although the taste wasn't great, he took more copious swigs, and to cover up how much he had drunk, he took a stick and whipped up a good head of foam. But when Jack began to stagger around, John knew what had happened. This episode started Jack on his rather bibulous life although beer was never a favorite.

Despite this rather unfortunate episode, John and Jack seem to have gotten along well, and Jack had no reason to doubt that John was his real father. When John began delivering potatoes to the markets and restaurants, he'd take the kid along. Jack soon got to know the men around town, and he saw a masculine camaraderie that wasn't present at home.

Jack didn't complain much about the farm chores but what he really liked was going to school. When he got older, he began spending a lot of time reading books from the Oakland public library. The librarian, Josephine Smith (Ina to her friends), took to advising Jack on what to read. To beef up the number of books he could take out, Jack signed up the entire family for library cards.

Of course, Jack was still expected to pitch in with the family finances. He delivered papers morning and evening, getting up at 3 a. m. for the early route. He also worked for an iceman on Saturday, and even set up the pins in a bowling alley.

You may read that Jack "dropped out" of school at age 14. Actually in 1891, Jack graduated from grammar school (which went up to grade eight). For the time this was by no means a poor education, and for most kids that was where formal educated ended. Even during the 1930's, high school was still pretty much a luxury for the well-to-do and pampered kids.

In fact, Jack might have continued on with school, but John and Flora's health began to decline. So Jack took a 10¢ an hour job in a cannery. The job was boring and the hours long and Jack began to think about getting away from home.

It wasn't just the work. Home life itself could be a bit of a strain. There were circumstances where Flora tended to be, well, a bit dramatic. If something upset her - even someone mildly disagreeing with her - she would go into the Fred Sanford ploy of pretending to have a heart attack. Then she would collapse on the floor.

Flora also tended to be rather profligate with the family monies, spending extra cash on various get-rich schemes. She particularly liked playing the local lotteries (the 19th century Old West version of the numbers racket) which as everyone knows are heavily stacked against the players. She did, though, bring in some income by giving music lessons, taking in boarders, and holding séances.

On the other hand, it would be wrong to see Jack and his family as destitute and starving. John's farming meant they did have a steady supply of vegetables, and we even read the Londons ate steak almost every night. Visitors commented on the excellence of Flora's cooking.

Not to mean Jack had a life of leisure, mind you. In his later years Jack claimed his 10¢ an hour job brought the family $50 a month. Today this seems like penury, but $50 a month in the 1890's was not an unusual wage. Firemen, brewery workers, butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers could expect such a income. The average cost of a month's food for a family of five was between $25 and $30. So with John and Flora also bringing in some money, the Londons had enough to get by.

Jack's complaint was not with the money per se, but with the time it took to earn it. If we do the grade school math, we calculate that Jack was working 500 hours a month. That's about 20 hours a day for a six-day week. Sometimes he said he had to work multiple shifts without a break. Although like some other writers Jack later exaggerated the deprivations of his youth, this was indeed an era where some workers did indeed put in such hours for such wages. Jack decided there must a better way.

Jack London: Entrepreneur

There was. Despite his long hours and low pay, Jack had managed to save money for a skiff. He would then load it up with vegetables from the farm, and then row out to the sailing vessels that docked in the bay. Rather than pay in cash, the cooks would hand over their empty kerosene cans. Jack would then sell them as scrap for a dime a can - his hourly wage at the cannery.

The maritime culture of San Francisco offered other opportunities. Oyster fishing was particularly lucrative. Unfortunately, the laws regulating the local industry stipulated that only a group of fat-cats (or rather their underpaid employees) could harvest the oyster beds.

But the beds, being in the ocean, were not something you could fence off or otherwise easily guard. So Jack found he could take his boat out at night, raid the beds, and sell the haul to the local restaurants. At the time oysters were extremely popular and so widely available that they were considered fast food.

True, taking oysters from the beds was a crime. But there was a catch (no joke intended). If an oyster bed was "abandoned", then anyone could take whatever they wanted. And as there was no way to identify where any particular oyster came from, when Jack said they were from an abandoned bed, who would argue? Certainly not the restaurant owners who got the haul at a discount.

There was a second catch. The profit of oyster pirating (as it was called) was good. So the field began to get crowded. With the added competition building, Jack had an idea.

He went to the authorities and offered his services as an oyster patrolman. The patrolmen - essentially game wardens - were paid no salary but got to keep 50% of the fines levied against the pirates. Jack's authority was not restricted to oyster filchers. He could also go after shrimp fishermen who were using illegal nets.

Working in the bay naturally brought Jack into contact with commercial seamen. They were largely a rough and tumble bunch. Tales about the brutal captains and first mates abounded, but life at sea was still seen as romantic and adventurous. And at least a sailor's life would also get him out of San Francisco.

Away from Home

Jack was seventeen when he set out on the Sophia Sutherland. The Sutherland was a sealer, that is a boat on an expedition to hunt seals. Seals were valued for their skin which in the 19th century was used to make leather goods. The fur was warm and the leather was soft and flexible. Sealskin was particularly useful for making water resistant clothing, and sealskin capes were particularly popular with the stylish ladies.

As usual in such micro-subcultures, the older denizens liked to put the fledglings in their place. One time a sailor named Big Red John decided he didn't want to do his rotation of kitchen duty. So he told Jack to do it. Jack, though, had his own work and refused.

Well, Big Red John wasn't going to take that from a land-lubbing kid on his first voyage. So he took a swing at Jack. Jack responded with a punch squarely between John's eyes. Then in the ensuing flight Jack put Big John in a choke hold which gave him no option except to give up. Jack had shown his stuff.

The voyage lasted seven months and took Jack through the North Pacific and over to Japan. When he returned he regaled his friends and family with tales of the sea.

Then with the encouragement of his mom, Jack wrote a story describing a typhoon and submitted it to a newspaper contest. Although other submissions were from college kids from Stanford and Berkley, Jack won first prize - $25. This was equivalent to several hundred dollars today and was the first indication that Jack had the ability to write for a living.

"Typhoon Off the Coast of Japan" - Jack's first published story - is also one of his best. The prose is straightforward and the action moves along. Jack clearly knew what he was writing about, but for the moment Jack put any serious literary aspirations aside.

Instead he continued to work at menial jobs for a couple of years. Then in 1894, at age eighteen, he decided to see if there were better opportunities elsewhere. So he took off.

Jack's mode of getting around was called "hoboing". A common concept through much of the 20th century, the notion has largely vanished from American memory. The men - and they were almost all men - would hop aboard a freight train and travel around the country. Hobos (also called the more pejorative "tramps") lived mostly by hand-outs from the locals who might expect some kind of work in return. The men usually slept in freight cars or in impromptu campsites called hobo-jungles.

Hoboing was not something for the fainthearted. Conditions were often harsh, riding the rails was dangerous, and conflict with the authorities common. Hoboes could be expected to be arrested for vagrancy and beaten by railroad guards. But despite the trials and tribulation, Jack kept a diary which years later he used for his account of his hoboing, The Road.

In Omaha Jack encountered what has become known as "Kelly's Army". You see in 1893, there had been another "panic" and unemployment soared. So a group of men in San Francisco got together and decided to march in protest to Washington.

The men were met with surprising hospitality in the towns and cities along the way - that is, unless it looked like they were planning to settle down for a while. Then they were encouraged to move on. Once they were even provided with their own freight train and at another town they were given a flotilla of flatboats.

Although by the time Kelly's Army reached Washington. it had been whittled down to about three hundred men, other hoboes had also arrived, forming a mass of about 1200. Some were arrested and mistreated, but eventually arrangements were made to return them to their own states and cities.

Jack was not with them. He had left the army in Missouri and continued east on his own. He eventually arrived in New York. There in Niagara Falls, he was arrested and sentenced to 30 days in the Erie County Jail.

The proceedings were most unusual. Not only did the authorities misspell Jack's name, but he was not allowed to enter his own plea, not permitted to speak, and not given a lawyer. His crime was "Tramp".

Jack began his sentence on June 28, 1894, and his time in the hoosegow was not pleasant. Hardened and dangerous criminals were not separated from minor offenders, and veteran prisoners formed gangs that preyed on the new inmates.

The inmates also had to work. Jack was first assigned to crushing rocks to make gravel for road construction. Later he was given the easier job of a "hall man" who distributed food to the prisoners. When he got out, he decided to return home.

During his travels Jack found that a lot of the hobos were intelligent and educated men. Not unexpectedly their politics tended toward what would help the poor and downtrodden. Disdaining the trickle down theory advocated by the likes of Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller (that is, if the poor were poor that was their tough luck), the men praised political leaders like socialist Eugene Debs who advocated that the ownership of the products of labor should ultimately belong to the workers themselves.

This was also a time when socialism was not the pejorative word and reviled concept it is now. Of course, this was before Vladimir Ulyanov, Joseph Dzhugashvili, and Lev Bronstein (also known a Lenin, Stalin, and Trotsky) felt that to help the working people you had to establish a government that would kill and enslave tens of millions of them.

Although today's socialists may indignantly deny that Stalinism (and even Marxism) is the same as socialism, such protestation usually fall on deaf ears. But in Jack's time, towns were electing socialists mayors and socialist candidates were going to Congress. So when Jack got back home in 1896 he joined the Socialist Party.

The Student

Jack's nineteenth year was pivotal. There we learn 1) he brushed his teeth for the first time and 2) he decided to return to high school.

Again we must toss a bouquet toward Flora at least for the second point. She supported Jack's plans and even said she had enough money to get by without Jack working. However, when Jack began attending Oakland High School he also worked as the school janitor.

Sorting out exactly how Jack managed his secondary education is a bit difficult as not all accounts tell exactly the same story. We do read that Jack finally decided the timeline to graduation was too lengthy, and he switched to a college preparatory school.

At the prep school (so the story goes), Jack completed the two year requirements in a semester. But because this made the other students look bad (and the school look bad) he was kicked out. After all, if parents were paying two year's tuition, they might get miffed if they learned it could all be completed in a few months. But at least Jack got his tuition refunded.

Obviously Jack had the brains to go to college. But his formal education was still lacking. Fortunately you could theoretically - as you can today - take the college entrance examination. If you passed you got in. So in 1896 and fortified with his brains and knowledge from the prep school - as well as with math tutoring by a young lady named Elizabeth Maddern - Jack was accepted at Berkley.

The Drop Out

And how did Jack fare at college?

It's hard to say since he dropped out in less than a year. We don't think the problem was any difficulties with his studies. But it may be no coincidence that while at Berkley that he learned John London was not his real father.

One story is that he stumbled onto newspaper archives and found the articles about his mother's past (and problems) with William Chaney. Other accounts say he learned about William from step-relatives. These stories, of course, are not mutually exclusive.

Whatever the source of his information, Jack managed to locate William and wrote asking if he was his father. Although William said for various reasons he couldn't be Jack's father (including having certain "difficulties" in lifting his lance), Jack realized that it was probably true.

Up North and Back

Once more Jack returned to manual labor and once (again) figured that there had to be better pickin's. After all this was 1897, Jack was twenty-one, and gold had been discovered in the Klondike.

Even today getting to and around Alaska isn't that easy. Some towns can only be reached by coastal boats, and winters are long and harsh. Getting to the Klondike was a long hard trek over land.

Actually the Klondike River is in Canada's Yukon Territory and about 30 miles east of the Alaska border. It was a wild country and even today the population of the Yukon is only about 35,000, 25,000 who live in the city of Whitehorse.

Like many prospectors (we should say "most"), Jack's time in Alaska was not profitable. He spent virtually all the winter huddled in a cabin since the weather prevented any serious mining. With poor food (no fruits or vegetables), Jack contracted scurvy, a disease which could have been avoided had he stuck with the traditional native diet. Within six months he gave up, and when he got back to San Francisco, he had only had $5 worth of gold dust and nothing else.

Jack London, Man of Letters

That is, Jack had nothing else except loads of ideas for a future writer. Back home he began to write stories and sending them to magazines. He had quickly learned the technicalities of writing: don't use the same word too much (use synonyms), vary sentence lengths, and above all write about what is familiar to you. Fortunately what Jack was familiar with was what people liked to read about; trips to far-off places and adventurous doings.

In the late 19th reading periodicals was the early equivalent of surfing the net. Short stories were particularly popular and even appeared in newspapers. And there was no dearth of publications that actually paid their contributors.

Best of all, there was a continuing demand for new authors. Writing was not the facile tapping at a computer keyboard it is today. Most authors laboriously composed by longhand and you could go through reams of paper before you even had the shortest of short stories. To complicate matters the editors were expecting typewritten submissions, and everyone who is long in the tooth can well remember the drudgery of producing properly formatted manuscripts on a mechanical machine. Jack, at least, could type.

At first Jack didn't have much luck peddling his wares. But in late 1898, he wrote a story "To the Man on the Trail" and sent it to the Overland Monthly. Although the magazine was published in Berkeley, the editors, Roscoe Eames and his wife Ninetta, featured major writers from all over the country. Jack's story appeared in January, 1899.

Admittedly as a work of literature "To the Man on Trail" is not Jack's best. Unlike in "A Typhoon Off Japan" where Jack was focused on telling a story, here he seems to be consciously (a bit too much) trying to create literature. So it's almost an unintentional parody. But at least the story netted him $5.

In the interim Jack had also applied for work at the post office. That was a good job with good pay. With some college under his belt, Jack now had a quite good education by the standards of the day. He was offered the job.

On the other hand, Jack had just sold a story to a major publication. Should he go to the post office with its reliable income and job security and write part time? Or should he just cast the die and decide to be a full-time writer?

Success

Jack chose the latter, and it was a good decision. That summer he hit real pay-dirt when he sold "An Odyssey of the North" to the Atlantic Monthly. It appeared in January, 1899. The Atlantic was even more prestigious than the Overland (and is still being printed). Jack's fee was also more substantial, $40 - or over $1000 in today's cash.

Success kept coming. He had sent a book manuscript, A Son of the Wolf, to Houghton Mifflin, then and for decades to come one of the major publishers in the United States. The book was a collection of stories about life in the Far North. It was accepted immediately, and Jack soon began receiving fan-mail.

On April 5, 1900, and shortly after A Son of the Wolf was accepted, Jack married his former tutor Elizabeth Maddern. Bessie (as she was called) had been the fiancée of one of Jack's friends who had died while on an ocean voyage.

Their friends were surprised. Jack and Bessie? Nah. Just not a real pair. And it really does not seem to have been much of a love match.

Still, on January 15, 1901, daughter Joan was born. Then the next year they had another daughter, Becky.

By now Jack was one of the nation's up and coming writers. Not all of his writing was fiction. With his easy and informal style, Jack was a natural muckraker. In February 1900, he had an article - actually a think-piece - appear in the Overland Monthly. Jack wrote how traditional war with the new technology had become so deadly and horrible that it was now impossible. In the same issue there was also a story by a young lady named Charmian Kittredge.

Being a newspaper correspondent had advantages over a fiction writer. First, since you were hired by the paper, even on a freelance basis, you were pretty much guaranteed to get your pay and expenses. Also if you were asked by the police why you were hanging around apparently doing nothing, your editors could confirm you were not a wandering vagabond. Instead, you were a journalist "on assignment".

In 1902 at the end of July, Jack went to England where he reported the plight of the poor. Later he wrote up what he saw in The People of the Abyss. The book was a hit in America although the English didn't care for an American airing Britain's dirty laundry. Jack was also in Trafalgar Square when the coronation procession of the hefty Edward VII passed by. In October he traveled through France, Italy, and Germany and was back in New York by early November.

Jack had been away almost half a year, something that could not have pleased Bessie who had to stay home raising two young girls. Perhaps to mollify her, in 1903 Jack stuck closer to home and started writing the book that would send him to the summit of American literature. That was Call of the Wild, and it was an instant best seller.

It didn't, though, make him rich. Needing some quick cash he sold the book for a flat upfront fee of $2000 without provision for royalties. But with the Call of the Wild, Jack was now the most famous of the young American authors.

On the other hand Bessie did not find it easy being married to a celebrity. She was not comfortable at the fancy banquets and parties she and Jack were now invited to. But at least with his success, Bessie hoped that Jack would now settle down.

Weeeeeeelllllll, sorry, Bessie. Wunderlüst is something that once you get is hard to lose. In 1904 Jack accepted an offer from William Randolph Hearst to travel to Japan for the San Francisco Examiner. He was to cover a fracas that had sprung up between Japan and Russia.

Jacques Le Journaliste

The Russo-Japanese War, like so many wars, broke out because two countries thought they should have land that neither actually owned. Russia wanted Manchuria and Korea, and so did Japan. After some thought Japan offered to swap Manchuria for Korea. But Russia said no, believing that the Japanese would never dare to pick a fight with a major European power. They were wrong and on February 8, 1904, the Japanese launched a surprise attack on the Russian Fleet stationed off the Liaodong Peninsula in Manchuria. The war was on.

The trip over wasn't great for Jack. He came down with the flu and sprained his ankle so bad that he couldn't walk for two days.

Then when he got to Yokohama (the port-sister-city of Tokyo), he found that the Japanese authorities would not permit him or other correspondents outside of the area. Their dispatches were supposed to come from what they were told by the Japanese government.

To heck with that, Jack thought. But finding no official way to get to the front lines, he began going to different coastal cities (including Nagasaki) to find a ship bound for Korea. Finally in Kobe he managed to book passage.

But before Jack could get on board he was arrested. It seems that the Japanese seeing a foreigner taking photographs along the dock became a bit suspicious. After submitting Jack to a lengthy and somewhat threatening interrogation, the Japanese military finally agreed that he wasn't a Russian spy. But they still tried him for espionage. He was found guilty and fined 5 yen.

The Japanese also confiscated Jack's camera and film, things that an effective correspondent needed. Fortunately, he managed to contact a senior correspondent, Richard Harding Davis, who had friends in high places. Richard was able to get the American ambassador to intercede and Jack got his camera back.

Jack was still determined to get to Korea to see things for himself, and kept looking for some boat that would take him over. He had no luck since the Japanese military kept searching the ships and putting any foreign correspondents back on shore. Finally Jack found a small boat and hired some fisherman to take him across the Sea of Japan. Then somehow he managed to get official approval to stay in Korea.

He was not in good shape. A British photographer had also managed to get across and saw that Jack's feet and fingers were frozen. But Jack brushed aside such minor inconveniences and earned a reputation as a gritty, tough reporter.

Although he was in Korea, Jack could scarcely just waltz up to the front. He finally managed to get a horse and was granted permission to move north. But when he got about 40 miles from the front, he was ordered back to Seoul.

Jack now decided the only way to get to the front lines was from the other side. So he asked his editors to transfer him to the Russian army. But before approval came, the war was suddenly over.

Most of the Russian fleet had been sunk and all in all the Japanese emerged as the winners. On the other hand casualties were heavy on both sides and the countries agreed to let the US President Teddy Roosevelt negotiate a treaty. Russia agreed to pull out of both Korea and Manchuria but didn't have to pay any reparations. Neither the Russian or Japanese public were happy with the terms. There were riots in Tokyo and the Tsar had a revolution on his hand which he managed to quell only after agreeing to let the people have a constitution and a parliament. For his part, Teddy did all right, winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1906.

Jack once more found himself in trouble. He had been getting around on a horse and he caught a man trying to steal the feed. Jack gave him a punch - but not too hard he said - but the man complained to the authorities. Normally it would have been a minor incident except the man was Japanese.

Jack was arrested, and the third time was clearly not the charm. There was even talk about trying the case - assaulting a Japanese citizen - by court martial. Jack was now faced with the possibility of spending years in prison or even getting the death penalty. Only after Teddy Roosevelt sent a personal message was Jack released. The Japanese authorities agreed on the condition that Jack leave immediately.

Back Home

Jack's newspaper work bolstered his fame as a writer. But his private life was making him even more famous. Or at least when he got home, he found the papers had been running stories of how Bessie was saying her husband had not been adhering to American Family Values. And she could not stay married to such a scalawag.

Bessie's suspicions started early. Shortly after their marriage, Jack met a young political activist and writer named Anna Strunsky. He invited Anna to live with him and Bessie and that way they could collaborate on a book. Bessie's opinion was not sought on the new arrangement and she, like Queen Victoria, was not amused.

Jack always maintained the relationship between him and Anna was honest and above board. Bessie wasn't convinced. Later she pointed out that in the early morning Anna and Jack would retire privately to Jack's study. After working for a while Anna and Jack would then take walks in the woods for the rest of the day. Once Bessie had gone out and when she returned she found Anna sitting in Jack's lap. Jack said they were just reviewing what they had written.

Finally Bessie became certain that Anna and Jack were more than just student and teacher. In July, 1903, Jack told her he was moving out. He would still support her and the kids, but he would live and work in Oakland.

Bessie saw no recourse but to call it quits. So by the time Jack had returned from Japan, Bessie was officially claiming that Anna and Jack had been hitting it off. Why, Bessie said, Jack and Anna would sometime make whoopee right there in the living room when she, Bessie, was present! Anna said that was hogwash. She denied she was the problem.

And Anna was correct. Instead, the problem was Charmian Kittredge, the lady whose story had appeared in the Overland Monthly with Jack's think piece. Charmian was the niece of the Overland's editors, Roscoe and Ninetta Eames, and she not only wrote stories but also provided reviews (often uncredited) for the magazine. She had written a favorable review of Jack's book, The Son of the Wolf, that Jack appreciated

Charmian was what we now call a liberated woman. She was single, had a job, and actually had a comfortable and even somewhat well-off lifestyle. She was also athletic and liked horse-riding (shockingly eschewing the demur side saddle and instead rode astride like a man). Although Charmian had a number of young men paying her attention, she had shown no indication that she was interested in marriage.

Charmian met Jack when he came in to the Overland's offices on business. They got to be on friendly enough terms but at first there was nothing more than that. Charmian and Bessie became good friends and Charmian was a frequent guest at the London's home.

By 1904 Charmian and Jack's terms had gotten very friendly, and soon they were carrying on. And when we mean they were carrying on, we mean they were carrying on.

And no, Jack was not fooling around with a younger woman. Charmian was five years his senior.

Before he left for Japan, Jack and Charmian were in a full relationship and Jack had expected Charmian to meet him at the dock when he arrived at San Francisco. But with the stories of Jack and Bessie's problems being blared out on the front pages, Charmian felt it prudent to visit relatives in the Midwest. She wrote to Jack explaining the situation and said she hoped to see him soon.

Bessie had always thought that Charmian had been a trusted friend. So once she learned that it was Charmian, not Anna, who had been the one dallying with her husband she was livid.

Finally Bessie agreed that if Jack would support her and the kids, she would remove any mention of Anna in the proceedings. She would also keep mum about Charmian and agreed to simply claim that Jack had deserted her. In 1905, Jack and Bessie's marriage ended, and Jack and Charmian immediately got hitched.

The newspapers were pretty hard on Jack and Charmian. Here was Bessie, the good wife and mother, abandoned by her profligate husband who was making whoopee with another woman. The stories were rather mean-spirited and made fun of Charmian's looks. Even today a modern biographer made a comment that she was somewhat "horse-faced".

Now it is true that Charmian did not have movie starlet sculptured features, but with her wide sunny smile she was quite nice looking. There are even some men who thought she was "gorgeous". Perhaps the best resolution of the conundrum is that in today's patois Charmian was a hottie.

Naturally with all this brouhaha going on, Jack had a lot of expenses (his agreement was to pay Bessie and the kids $75 a month plus any unexpected expenses like doctor's bills). So he worked hard, turning out his customary 1000 words a day. That was quite an effort before computers and word processors. Jack soon completed The Sea Wolf, a novel based on his voyage of the Sophia Sutherland. It was a big hit and this time Jack did get royalties.

Some of today's readers find fault with Jack's stories, thinking that his reputation is overblown. Part of this is due to the storylines. There's an awful lot of violence, not only against people but also toward animals (when you get down to it Call of the Wild really isn't a kids book any more than is Huckleberry Finn). Also Jack's writing style is a bit dated. That's to be expected since they were all written over a hundred years ago. Shoot, read stories written twenty years ago and they seem dated.

The Big Time

By 1906 Jack was only thirty but there were ominous signs regarding his health. He had skin problems which may possibly have been renal pruritus. This is a condition where crystals of urea form on the skin because the kidneys aren't working efficiently. Jack also underwent surgery to remove a benign growth. He kept drinking (although not as much as in his earlier days) and worse, he smoked like the proverbial chimney, usually sixty cigarettes a day.

Charmian and others tried to get Jack to slow down but like many people who come into money, Jack thought you should use it not hoard it. So the year he married Charmian, he bought some property near Glen Ellen about 40 miles north of San Francisco. To cover the cost of what he called "Beauty Ranch", Jack borrowed from future royalties. His plans were to start a self-sustaining working ranch. But for this he also had to buy livestock and hire workmen. He then asked his step-sister Eliza to serve as day-to-day manager particularly when Jack and Charmian were away.

Fortunately, by now Jack had the wherewithal to get money if needed. He started working on White Fang another story about a dog. The book sold well although the US President, Teddy Roosevelt, didn't like it.

On the ranch Jack and Charmian had built a small house where Jack had a study. The house (and study) are still there. But then they began building a larger home. Called "Wolf House", it could legitimately be described as a mansion.

Like most writers, Jack was also a reader. About the time he bought the Beauty Ranch, he had been reading Sailing Around the World by John Slocum. John had gotten a sailboat, and with no crew other than himself - as the book says - sailed around the world.

Now that was an idea. Why not build a boat and take a world cruise, Jack mused? Not alone, of course, but with Charmian and a crew. Maybe in five years?

Charmian asked why wait. Start building the boat now while they had plenty of money and were still young.

Yes, they had money, but they were spending it faster than it came in. Jack had spent $65,000 on the ranch and Wolf House construction, and now the sloop was expected to cost $7000 (actually cost overruns would push it to $30000). Fortunately, the Slayton Lyceum Lecture Bureau came to the rescue with an offer of $600 a week plus expenses. Naturally Jack accepted.

The tour was a smashing success. Jack even lectured at Princeton and Harvard (where socialist activist, Mary Harris Jones, better known as Mother Jones, gave him a kiss). And he continued to write short stories, articles, and books

Jacques London, Le Champagne Socialiste de Glen Ellen?

At this point, though, some of Jack's fellow socialists began to notice that Jack was beginning to live like, well, like a rich rancher. He was buying up land, hiring servants, and in addition to that, he was raking in more dough in a year than most of the working class would see in a lifetime.

That was a socialist?

One of Jack's characteristics is that when criticized he would go off into spittle-flinging diatribes (a characteristic shared by the later writer and socialist, George Orwell). Jack pointed out that during all of his life he had exploited no one and his wealth did not come from the sweat of the poor. His workers were paid and paid well. But the criticism continued.

With new plans on the way and old plans coming to fruition, things were going along fine - at least until April 18, 1906. At 5:12 a. m. that morning, the San Andreas fault slipped 20 feet. The ground shook for about a minute.

Glen Ellen was 40 miles north of San Francisco (50 by road), but the quake shook Jack and Charmian out of their beds. They got on their horses and headed toward high ground so they could look toward the city.

San Francisco was already on fire. So naturally Jack and Charmian were concerned for friends and family (in addition to Bessie and the kids, Jack's mom, Flora, still lived in Oakland). They were relieved when they found everyone was OK.

Jack and Charmian got to the city by ferry. What Jack thought strange was that he was walking through streets that were intact and survived the quake in perfect order, but would soon be burnt to the ground.

The apparent calm was illusionary. When they got to the damaged areas people were still being pulled from the rubble. By evening most of the fires had burned out but the official estimate was 700 people died. As the numbers ignored many of the minority groups (there was a large Chinese population), today the guess is the toll was closer to 3000.

When Jack got home there was a message from William Randolph Hearst asking for an immediate article about the quake. He dashed it off and today it's one of the classic accounts of the disaster.

Except for a vacation with Charmian in Northern California, in 1906 Jack stuck close to home. Toward the end of the year he began writing The Iron Heel arguably the first true dsytopian novel. The story is supposedly from a manuscript discovered centuries in the future. The plot tells of how an uprising of the working class was suppressed by a dictatorial oligarchy (ergo, "The Iron Heel"). One fan was Leon Trotsky who later wrote a favorable review.

Today some readers are amazed at how cannily the novel predicts the rise of the 20th century dictatorships and the ensuing mayhem. Actually Jack was pretty much writing about what had happened in the 19th century and was picturing what would happen if the trends continued The Guilded Age of Jack's youth produced monopolies and oligarchies that more or less had the politicians in their pockets. Popular (and violent) revolutions of the poor workers against authoritarian governments were old hat by 1906. Many people know about the French Revolution (in 1789) but aren't aware that there were a large number of European uprisings in the first half the 19th century including quite a lot in 1848. Not that Jack's guesses weren't good, but there's really nothing mystical about them.

The World Traveler

The 1906 Earthquake had put a crimp in Jack and Charmian's plans. Their boat was being built but the cost of material had doubled overnight. Jack told the builders to go ahead anyway and to spare no expense. Since Charmian's uncle, Roscoe Eames, was supervising construction, Jack felt things were in good hands. It seems, though, that Uncle Roscoe was a better editor than shipbuilder.

Finally in 1907 they set sail on the boat - technically a two masted vessel called a "ketch" - which Jack had christened the Snark. The crew included not only Uncle Roscoe, but a young man named Martin Johnson. Martin signed up as cook although he warned Jack he couldn't cook. Martin and his future wife Osa later became well-known adventurers, explorers, and film makers of animal wildlife. Martin was later killed in a plane crash and Osa went on to write (and film), I Married Adventure.

The lack of Martin's qualification for his job was par for the course. Uncle Roscoe, who was to be the sailing master and navigator, couldn't sail and couldn't navigate. In fact, none of the crew had experience in sailing and when they shoved off, one of the first things some of the crew did (including Charmian) was to get seasick.

The plan was to be gone seven years and cruise the Pacific. However, the Snark was leaky, the anchor couldn't be raised properly, and even the bathroom (the "head") didn't work.

With no qualified navigator on board Jack gave himself a crash course in using the sextant. Thankfully he learned enough so he could figure out where they were. The trip was rough, though, and at one point they encountered a storm.

Now the normal procedure would be for the boat to heave to - that is, set the sails so the boat slows down and doesn't have to be steered. But the design of the boat made this impossible and so the crew had be at their stations throughout the storm. At one point Jack told Martin they were only two miles from land. Martin asked where it was. "Straight down, Martin," replied Jack. "Straight down."

Finally, they arrived in Hawaii after traveling over 2000 miles. The crew, somewhat battered after almost a month at sea, soon recovered. Best of all, since they intended to make a long stay, the ship could be refitted, repaired, and even redesigned. Jack also gave Uncle Roscoe and some of the others the boot. Martin, though, remained part of the crew.

It's a pretty good bet to say that anyone who has gone to Hawaii loves it. That was certainly true of Jack and Charmian (Jack even learned to surf). Ironically it was sitting in Hawaii while on a veranda in the warm sun with the South Pacific before him that Jack wrote one of his most famous stories. This was "To Build a Fire" about a man who freezes to death in Alaska.

They stayed six months and left on October 7. The next leg of the trip was pretty ambitious. It was to plow over 2500 miles of ocean to the Marquesas Islands (later well publicized in Thor Heyerdahl's book, Fatu Hiva). So after they weighed anchor, Jack set a course south.

That was a mistake. The route took them out of the region of the trade winds and put them in what the sailors called the Doldrums. This was where winds didn't blow and the ship only moved by whatever current prevailed. Experienced captains avoided the region and so Jack and the rest were drifting at sea where no one would find them.

When the Snark didn't show up at the Marquesas, Jack's friends began to worry. It wasn't until November 26 - nearly two months later - that they had drifted out of the Doldrums and caught the trade winds again. In another ten days, they finally reached the islands.

Despite what could have been a life threatening ordeal, Jack was optimistic about the rest of the trip. They intended to sail through the South Seas. According to Jack they would then "take in Samoa, New Zealand, Tasmania, Australia, New Guinea, Borneo and Sumatra, and go on up through the Philippines to Japan. Then will come Korea, China, India, the Red Sea, and the Mediterranean."

Well, they made it to Tahiti (where Jack and Charmian stayed in Robert Louis Stevenson's old cottage), Bora Bora, Fiji, and the Solomon Islands (famed for its headhunters).

Neither the crew nor the Snark were in good shape. The decks were rotting and everyone was sick with various ailments - malaria, dysentery, boils, sunburn, and infections from scratching mosquito bites. Jack treated his sores with mercuric chloride ("corrosive sublimate") and his teeth were getting worse than ever, forcing him to seek out a local dentist.

It was when Jack noticed his hands had swollen to twice their size and the skin was sloughing off that he decided they couldn't continue the trip. No one knew what the problem was. So leaving the Snark, Jack, Charmian, and Martin took a passenger ship to Australia.

Charmian was successfully treated for malaria but Jack's skin-sloughing illness flummoxed the doctors. Only later did he learn that it was pellagra, a Vitamin B deficiency. Jack and Charmian's health was so poor that they had to remain in Australia for five months. Finally they returned to San Francisco.

Jack wrote up his account of the voyage of the Snark as (what else?) The Voyage of the Snark. We don't know how much Jack stretched things - authors sometimes do this - but most critics pretty much take what Jack wrote at face value.

Back Home

The next three years, 1909 - 1911, were pretty close to home with Jack working hard. As a free lance journalist he had become acquainted with a lot of the employees of the Hearst newspapers. One was a young jug-eared illustrator for the Chronicle. Jack was impressed with the kid's work and suggested he might want to try his hand in New York. The illustrator - whose name was Robert Ripley - took Jack's advice and as we know did pretty well for himself.

Jack's finances had a tendency to flip from strained to solvent and back to strained, In some years he made $75,000 - a huge income for the day - but he also spent as much and more. So to keep his output up he sometimes purchased story lines, including those from a young and struggling author named Sinclair Lewis.

In 1912, Jack and Charmian took a another cruise, this time on the Dirigo, a ship not of his own design and one that was manned with a professional crew. They sailed around Cape Horn - not usually an easy journey - and they returned home after five months. Jack used this trip as a foundation for The Mutiny of the Elsinore which was published two years later.

Jack and the Kids

Jack had kept in contact with his daughters. Joan wrote her dad frequently, keeping him up-to-date on her doings. Because Bessie and Jack harbored rather bitter feelings toward each other, Joan would sometimes be the conduit of communication between her dad and mom. For the most part we get a picture of a concerned and affectionate but rather querulous father.

But in one case Jack got so irritated with Joan that he responded with what was one of his most spittle flinging of spittle flinging diatribes. Part of the problem was the letter came when Jack was having major cash flow problems. Joan had asked Jack to send her $4.50. Jack did so but pointed out that left him with only $3.46 in the bank.

But what had really ticked Jack off was Joan had been buying books from a bookstore and charging the cost to Jack's account without telling him. As he wrote:

I note by your letter that you have been charging schoolbooks in my account at Smith's. Never again do a thing like this. Never be guilty of charging to anybody's account when you have not received permission from that person.

For some reason this really sent Jack into a tirade:

Years ago I warned your mother that if I were denied the opportunity of forming [raising] you, sooner or later I would grow disinterested in you, I would develop a disgust and I would turn down the page. Of course, your mother, who is deaf to all things spiritual and appreciative and understanding, smiled to herself and discounted what I told her. Your mother today understands me no more than she ever understood me - which is no understanding at all.

He keeps going:

But please, please remember that in whatever you do from now on, I am uninterested. I desire to know neither your failures nor your successes; wherefore please no more tell me of your markings in High School, and no longer send me your compositions.

All my life I have been overcome by disgust, which has led me to turn pages down, and those pages have been turned down forever [that is, if Jack writes someone off, they stay written off]. It is my weakness, as I said before. Unless I should accidentally meet you on the street, I doubt if I shall ever see you again. If you should be dying, and should ask for me at your bedside, I should surely come; on the other hand, if I were dying I should not care to have you at my bedside. A ruined colt is a ruined colt, and I do not like ruined colts.

And ending this paternal letter, Jack concludes:

Whenever you want money within reason, for clothes, books, spending, etc., write me for it, and if I have it at the time, I shall send it to you.

Jack London

Of course, Joan was devastated. But even though we can see that Jack was lashing out at his daughter when he was really resentful of Bessie, we have to cut him a bit of slack. The time he wrote the letter - 1913 - was not just a time of financial strain but also of personal loss. Wolf House, still under construction, had burned down. Jack had insurance, but not enough to cover the loss.

And no, Jack did not carry through on his implied disownment. He and Joan continued their correspondence in an more appropriate daughterly-fatherly tone. Most of the time.

South of the Border

It was inevitable that Jack's stories would be turned into motion pictures. Even today we still have films being made based on his stories and novels.

The first movie from Jack's stories was a 1907 version of The Sea Wolf. The next production, in 1913, actually featured Jack in a cameo, and there have been at least a dozen remakes.

By the beginning of 1914, Jack was at a high point professionally. But he was finding himself more and more at odds with his old friends, the Socialists. Yes, he was raking in the dough, but this was not, he felt, a contradiction of his socialist principles. His theory - not unlike that of his Socialistic contemporary, the electrical engineer and scientist, Charles Proteus Steinmetz - was that capitalism had to come first and only then could it be replaced by true socialism. Could he help it that he just happened to be living during the "capitalistic phase" of the transition?

In June Jack got a request from Colliers Magazine. They asked if Jack would travel around the world writing a series of articles. Naturally Charmian could come along as well. But before they left, Colliers asked them to take a detour to Mexico where President Woodrow Wilson had ordered the Americans to invade.

The reasons for the invasion now seem a bit muddled. True, some American sailors in Tampico had wandered into a restricted area and were arrested. However, they were soon released, although the Mexican authorities didn't provide a 21-gun salute as the Americans demanded. But that's not really much of a reason to invade a country.

Instead word had gotten out that there was a shipment of arms from Germany due to arrive in the port city of Veracruz in April. Although at this time Europe wasn't even at War (this wouldn't happen until the end of July), the shipment was bringing European tensions too close for American comfort.

And of course there was the concerns that the Mexican president, Victoriano Huerta, just wasn't looking after American business interests as carefully as the Americans thought proper, particularly the interests of the mining companies.

Actually the - quote - "invasion" - unquote - was pretty much limited to the occupation of Veracruz. The Marines had landed on April 21, 1914, which was almost exactly 70 years after the Americans had laid siege to the city during the last Mexican-American War. The invasion wasn't without cost. Nineteen Americans were killed as were 126 Mexicans.

The American military set up it's own governance and then pulled out six months later, leaving behind a new and friendlier president, Venustiano Carranza. On the other hand, it also left a country of very irritated and resentful citizens.

Jack's timeline south of the border is confusing. Some chronologies have Jack being in Mexico in 1915. But there are also photographs attributed to him from 1914, and one major source has Jack arriving on April 27, 1914. This was less than a week after the invasion.

Whenever he arrived, we do know that the fighting was already over. Charmian reached Veracruz shortly thereafter and if you read about Jack's visit you get the impressions not much happened. One biography devotes only a paragraph to the trip and another doesn't mention it at all. Even Charmian's personal account makes it seems like nothing was going on.

Jack's writings from Mexico continued to run him afoul of his fellow socialists. Normally the socialists were critical of America invading countries for fun and profit. To their chagrin Jack's dispatches were quite positive toward the American forces. Clearly Jack was abandoning the socialist cause and indeed the next year, Jack and Charmian, weary of what they saw as unjustified criticism, dropped their membership in the party.

Mexico remained neutral during World War I, and the American occupation of Veracruz is often cited as the reason they refused to join the Allies. Actually the Mexican government had enough to worry about since they had been involved in a revolution since around 1910. Jack had even reported on the revolution before. Working out of El Paso, there were times it was literally possible for Jack to sit in Texas and look across the border to Juarez and watch the fighting.

All in all Jack seems to have had sympathy with the revolutionarios and in 1913 he had written "The Mexican", a short story about a young Mexican who sets up a boxing match where the winnings will help fund the revolution. The protagonist wins the match against an American, and thus the revolution continues.

The Controversy

And this leads us to a most controversial area. That's Jack's views on race.

After reading stories like "The Mexican", readers are surprised to learn that today Jack is considerably trashed as a racist. The - quote - "proof" - unquote - of such assertions are stories like "The Unparalleled Invasion" where Jack writes about the United States using biological warfare against China and then rejoices how a new joyous epoch of science and art will begin.

But hold on, there, say Jack's fans. You are citing a work of fiction. You cannot - that's not, not, NOT - accept fictional works as the views of the author. Consider, for instance, some of Robert Crumb's comics which are actually savage satire of racism and bigotry. And yet they are sometimes taken seriously by the white supremacists themselves (and in doing so actually confirm the idea that lack of ability to recognize irony is a characteristic of low intelligence).

Jack's fans will also point out that what are often considered racist rants are actually simply statements to the Europeans and Americans that the Asian countries will soon have international influence. Indeed, Jack's comments are often quite positive toward non-Western cultures and the people, and he praised the Chinese and Japanese for their energy and ability. No, Jack is just saying that Americans must learn to understand other cultures if they want to live in the new world coming.

Jack frequently shows tolerance that are sometimes superior to today's standards. He certainly never opposed immigration of any minorities. One of the crew members of the Snark was a young Japanese who wanted to attend school in America. Jack personally interceded with the Immigration Bureau who had refused his application.

Finally, we have a letter Jack wrote to Toichi Nakahara, who was the editor of the Japanese-American Commercial Weekly. Toichi had asked Jack what could be done to maintain American and Japanese friendship. One thing Jack said was "by educating the people of the United States and the people of Japan so that they will be too intelligently tolerant to respond to any call to race prejudice." He concluded by saying that nations and races were "only unruly boys who have not grown to the stature of men.... And, just as boys grow up, so the races of mankind grow up and laugh when they look back upon their childish quarrels."

That, Jack's fans say, is not the writings of a racist.

Instead one professor recently pointed out that Jack's views on race were in fact those of educated and progressive Europeans and Americans based on anthropological theories of the time. That doesn't mean the theories were correct. But we shouldn't fault Jack for believing the science of his time any more than faulting Isaac Newton for not having relativistic corrections in the Principia.

The sad truth is that the concept of race prior to the late 20th century would be laughable if we hadn't seen their recent resurgence. As an example of the strange anthropological thinking prevalent in Jack's times, we need do nothing more than remember what Jack once wrote a friend during World War I. Jack said he was for the Allies both by philosophic conviction and "by English race".

Ha? (To quote Shakespeare.) English race?

You see, in the late 19th and early 20 century virtually any cognitive difference between groups of people led them to be designated as a "race". Not only did people talk - as Jack did - about the "English race", but we even hear of the "Irish race", the "Italian race", the "Scandinavian race", and sometimes even the "Yankee race". One famous panelist on a popular game show in the 1960's even spoke of New York City cab drivers as being a "perhaps the most helpful race of people in New York City"! Among the multitudinous races of the time we have Anglo-Saxon, Teutonic, Caucasian, Polynesian, Semitic, Aryan, Mongoloid, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Eskimo, Australoid, Hottentot, and Bushmen.

It doesn't take a Ph. D. to recognize what's going on. What were once called races are actually linguistic families - a perfectly valid scientific and sociological concept. As easy as it is to classify groups by their linguistic heritage, you run into trouble when trying to create "races" out of what is actually a genetic continuum. Even Charles Darwin himself said that it was hardly possible to discover distinctive differences between races. So if people had listened to Charles, it would have saved us a lot of trouble.

By now, though, Jack's detractors will be about to bust their guts in indignation. Yes, you can pick and choose from Jack's fiction and his public pronouncements. But instead of cherry picking Jack's fiction and his public pronouncements, turn to his private correspondence and unguarded comments. That's the real Jack London.

It wasn't Jack's detractors who first expressed concern for his unseemly attitudes. It was his friends and fellow socialists. At one meeting we read that Jack gave a speech which was a tirade against Asia "in the most outrageous terms". When one of his friends pointed out that his views contradicted the whole philosophy of uniting the workers of all nations, Jack pounded his fists and ranted "What the devil? I am first of all a white man and only then a socialist!"

You say that's not a racist?

And don't forget Jack's attitude toward the black boxer, Jack Johnson when he fought the "(Not So) Great White Hope" James Jeffries. Johnson had become the first black heavyweight champion in boxing when he took the title from Tommy Burns in Sydney, Australia in 1908.

Then in 1910 Jeffries, who had earlier refused to fight Johnson, agreed to come out of retirement. And in urging Jeffries to accept the challenge, Jack wrote "Jim Jeffries must emerge from his alfalfa farm and remove the golden smile from Jack Johnson's face. Jeff, it's up to you! The White Man must be rescued."

Huh! So clearly Jack was not only a "champagne socialist" but he was indeed a white racist!

Weeeeelllllll, hold on there.

Go to the articles Jack wrote about the actual fight and read them in their entireties. They are not quite as one-sided as you might be led to believe. Yes, Jack starts out championing Jeffries. But as time goes on the articles actually tend to tilt toward Johnson.

Finally after the fight was over and when Johnson did indeed whop Jeffries, Jack wrote:

There is nothing heavy nor primitive about this man Johnson. He is alive and quivering, every nerve fiber in his body and brain, withal that it is hidden, so artfully, or naturally, under that poise of facetious calm of his. He is a marvel of sensitiveness, sensibility and perceptibility. He has a perfect mechanism of mind and body. His mind works like chain lightning and his body obeys with equal swiftness.

In fact, Jack kind of dumped on Jeffries:

At the opening of the first round they did not shake hands. Knowing the two men for what they are, it can be safely postulated that this neglect was due to Jeff or to the prompting of Jeff's corner. But it is not good that two boxers should not shake hands before a bout. I would suggest to these protagonists of a perishing game, if they wish to preserve the game, that they make the most of these little amenities that by custom grace their sport, and give it the veneer of civilization.

Jack ended up by writing on Johnson's demeanor in the ring.

Johnson is a wonder. No one understands him, this man who smiles. Well, the story of the fight is the story of a smile. If ever a man won by nothing more fatiguing than a smile, Johnson won to-day.

Hm. Not what we'd call horribly biased or vindictive writing.

Still there's lots of fodder for Jack's critics. Without doubt the most problematical writings were letters he wrote to a young man named Spiro Orfans.

Spiro was from Seattle and shared Jack's socialistic philosophy. When he visited Jack and Charmian at Glen Ellen, Charmian didn't like him, thinking Spiro just liked hanging around and sponging off Jack's hospitality. Jack on the other hand enjoyed talking and debating with Spiro on various political and philosophical topics. There is even a photo of the two men fencing. For his part Spiro was a great admirer of Jack's books and stories.

But Spiro was of Greek ancestry and he took umbrage about the book The Mutiny of Elsinore where he thought Jack was "making too much of his azure-eyed, blond skinned Anglo Saxonism". Spiro pointed out that he being Greek was "brown-eyed dark skin pigmented" and he added "No mortal is readier than I am to pay tribute to your genius, your work. and your personality. But if for this I am to bow before everyone of the blue-eyed fair-skinned mortals, I'll say 'nix' for ever more".

Jack quickly responded. Although the letter was not particularly mean-spirited toward Spiro personally, we have to admit regarding race relations this is not Jack at his finest. He claimed that there are no Greeks anymore and that the current Greeks were the product of racial mixtures. He started off saying that "God abhors mongrels" (a funny thing for an atheist to say) and points out that "breed a pure greyhound with a pure specimen of bulldog and you get mongrels". "Nature," he added, "permits no mongrel to endure."

Given Jack's love of nature in general and dogs in particular we are puzzled by his logic. He must have known that pure breed dogs - greyhounds, bull dogs, chihuahuas, fox terriers, dalmatians, and the lot - are "pure breed" only by human designation. In fact, most breeds have arisen in historical times and mixed breeding is a way to create new breeds.

The truth is that "mongrels" show no adverse or negative characteristics. If anything they tend to be healthier than the pure breeds. Spiro understood this and wrote back pointing out that nature seems to love mongrels or they wouldn't arise naturally.

Part of the problem is that Jack, like many people, didn't understand that survival of the fittest really means survival of the fit enough. It certainly does not mean that to survive, one species completely dominates others to the point of subjugation, exploitation, and extinction. In the real world, evolution with cooperation is surprisingly common, not just among species, and even between animal kingdoms: animals, plants, and protista. In fact, inter-species cooperation of some kind is necessary for survival of most organisms.

Jack wasn't convinced and if Jack's fans think the first letter was bad, his second reply to Spiro was worse. Calling Spiro a "boob" he said Spiro did "crucify yourself upon your own colossal stupidity". Adding that Spiro (as a Greek) was a "bastard mixture of uncountable breeds", he threw in a number of insults about Greeks (borrowed from the writings of Lord Byron) and closed the letter by saying, "You weak spineless thing. One thing remains to you. Get down on your hams and eat out of my hand. Or cease forever from my existence."

As far as we can tell, Spiro took the latter option.

So what, as Flakey Foont asked Mr. Natural, does it all mean?

Any attempt to figure out what Jack believed about race assumes Jack had a basic coherent belief which by sifting through his writings we can recover. However, by doing the sifting, it becomes clear that Jack did not have a consistently clear view on race. We can be pretty certain that he did subscribe to the 19th and early 20th century beliefs that there were distinct races. And in common with most people of European descent he believed that those of European descent were the ones best fit to rule.

But on the other hand, at no time did Jack ever speak of restricting immigration from other countries regardless of their ethnicity. Nor did he believe in restricting rights of minorities. Jack saw much to admire in non-western cultures and - as we see in his reporting of the Johnson-Jeffries fight - he felt that when you get down to it, it was the individual that mattered regardless of their - quote - "race" - unquote.

In the end, we can borrow a phrase from historian Robert Utley (although Bob was writing about George Armstrong Custer). Jack London is who we want him to be. If we want to see him as a product of the early Eurocentric milieu we can find in all we want in his writings to prove this case. On the other hand, if we want to see him as an advocate of the poor and underprivileged regardless of race, we can find in his writings all we want to prove that, too.

1916

But what about those spittle-flinging diatribes he wrote to Spiro? And his vituperative letter to his own daughter Joan? Was Jack was in the full possession of his senses?

The truth is he may not have been. At least we know by 1916 Jack was not a well man.

Jack's traveling had been hard on him and his lifestyle was not healthy. Although Jack didn't drink as much as before, he was a constant smoker. His teeth and gums continued to deteriorate and we know now that dental infections can cause other health problems as well.

It's pretty much accepted that toward the end of his life, Jack was suffering from uremia, that is, retention of urea in the bloodstream due to failure of the kidneys. He also suffered from kidney stones, then as now a painful ailment. But as was true for much of early 20th century medicine, the treatments were designed for relieving symptoms and less so for curing the ailment. We know from Jack's surviving medical kits that he had access to opium, codeine, morphine, and heroin.

Accounts of Jack's last day differ. In one he had eaten dinner at 6:30 on November 21, 1916. During the night he suffered what he thought was acute indigestion. Three doctors were summoned and at 6:30 the next evening they issued a bulletin that Jack was suffering from uremia and was in serious condition. But shortly after, at 7:45 p. m., Jack died.

Later the story got out that Jack had taken an overdose of morphine, perhaps deliberately. Some accounts stated flat out he committed suicide. Today, though, the suicide story is usually discounted.

Charmian left us her version of Jack's last days. By mid-November 1916, Jack was in sad shape. He was usually in intense pain and Charmian was having to attend to him almost constantly. However, on November 21, he was still talking about plans for the Glen Ellen ranch. He had also written to his daughter Joan saying that he would like her and Becky to come visit. Then they could go out boating.

That evening he decided to go to bed early. At 9:00 p. m. Charmian looked in on him. He seemed to have fallen asleep while reading. Later she went to her own room (married couples sleeping even in different rooms was not that uncommon).

At 8:00 a. m. the next morning, November 22, one of the servants, Tokinosuke Sekine, and Eliza, Jack's step-sister, woke Charmian and said they couldn't wake Jack. Charmian ran to the room and found him unconscious. He was breathing but his face was blue. Two doctors were called and at least by some tellings, that's when they saw two empty morphine vials. They tried to revive him but to no avail.

It's certainly not outside the realm of probability that Jack had been administering morphine himself to relieve his pain. So he could have overestimated the dose. But most modern biographers simply say he succumbed to his illnesses.

1916 - 1955

With a few exception, all of Jack's estate went to Charmian, including the royalties of Jack's books and novels. Eliza, was to be business manager of his estate (and paid $35 a month for her services).

Jenny Prentiss had moved in with Flora and Jack supported both women. Jack, though, had little direct contact with his mother, mainly because Flora had taken Bessie's side in their split up. Now Jack made it clear Jenny was to be properly provided for. He stipulated that his estate would pay for a decent house plus $15 a month and any unexpected expenses.

Bessie remained resentful toward Charmian and had forbidden Joan and Becky to visit Jack if Charmian was present. On the other hand, care for the girls was to be handled by "the discretion" of the executors - ergo, Charmian.

Naturally, Bessie was not pleased, particularly since Jack "recommended" that the girls live with Charmian. Charmian, not wanting to appear vindictive, told Bessie she should apply to be the girls' official guardian, which Bessie did. After some negotiations, Joan and Becky were provided with support until they were 21 years old.

Charmian tried to establish friendly contacts with the girls. She wrote them nice letters, and they responded with courtesy. But it wasn't until 1925 that Joan actually met Charmian. Joan was beginning to embark on her own writing career and Charmian gave her what help she could. But after some years things began to cool between them, and later Joan would deny she ever met Charmian. Becky never did and apparently never wanted to.

Although Jack's will stipulated that if Charmian remarried she would still have the rights to his estate, she stayed single. She did cultivate friendships with a number of men, though, including Harry Houdini.

It's amazing that an entertainer who died nearly a century ago is still part of American mainstream culture. Of course the continuing popularity of stage magic has kept Harry's memory alive, and even today - literally - you still read how NFL quarterbacks or MLB relief pitchers who get their team out of tight spots are dubbed "modern Houdinis".

Charmian and Jack had met Harry and his wife, Bess, in 1915 when Harry appeared at the Oakland Orpheum. The couples became friends and when Jack died Charmian and Harry continued to correspond.

If Charmian was in town when Harry was performing, she'd catch the show. We know that Charmian was present when Harry did his famous "Vanishing Elephant" trick at the New York Hippodrome in January, 1918. This was a trick that went down in magical history although some people who actually saw it thought it was pretty pud.

After reading Charmian's diary most biographers conclude that at this time that and Harry began a full blown fling which lasted until Charmian returned to California three months later. Others, though, say we shouldn't jump to conclusions using a few references, sometimes in code, from a private diary and scattered and ambiguous references in correspondence. That we are quick to do so tells us more about our lubricious times and culture than about Harry and Charmian.

Charmian continued to promote good causes (like animal rights) and worked with publishers and film makers for bringing out new editions and motion pictures of Jack's work. She herself wrote a number of books including a biography of Jack. She later either asked - or granted the request of - the famed writer Irving Stone to write a separate biography. This was in 1937 and three years earlier Irving had hit the big time with his book about Van Gogh, Lust for Life.

With the possible exception of Clarence Darrow for the Defense, Irving's books were not biography in a strict sense and the books are almost always referred to as biographical novels. A novel, according to a dictionary definition, is "a fictitious prose narrative of book length typically representing character and action with some degree realism." The key word is "fictitious" and Irving would admit spinning a scene out of the cloth.

This doesn't mean, though, that the books are complete balderdash. With Charmian's permission Irving extensively consulted Jack's private papers and interviewed people who knew him personally. The resulting book, Sailor on Horseback, although not as lucrative as some of Irving's other books, sold well.

Expecting a straightforward - perhaps hagiographic - biography, Charmian was flabbergasted to read things about Jack that she claimed she never knew. She also thought Irving was striving too much for sensationalism regarding Jack's personal life rather than telling the story of Jack's legacy.

Actually, the book reads pretty much like a number of other of Jack's biographies. There are considerably fewer instances of (probably) invented dialog than in Irving's other books (Lust for Life has a lot of dialog that is almost certainly not verbatim).

Charmian was particularly concerned that the book kept up the story that Jack had died of a morphine overdose. Irving wrote that not only that two empty morphine vials were found in the room but that there was a notepad by the bed with the calculation of the lethal dose. True, this may have been Jack trying to determine the amount he should not exceed, but it certainly left open the possibility of suicide.

Worse - from Charmian's perspective - is that one of the attending physicians, Dr. Allan Thompson, is quoted (presumably during an interview with Irving) that Charmian said that it was important that the death be ascribed only to uremia. This could be taken that Charmian was actually asking for a coverup.

It is extremely difficult - because Irving did not specifically document his sources - to tell where the biography ends and Irving's imagination begins. One reviewer wrote that the drawback of the - quote - "biographical novel" - unquote - was the "gullible reader" could believe what they were reading was documented fact and that there are no other possible accounts.

In 1939, Jack's daughter, Joan, also published a biography, Jack London and His Times. Joan did her best to be objective and a true student of Jack's life will read the book with interest.

In the 1940's and then in her seventies, Charmian's health began to fail. For the last decade of her life she was frail and no longer continued to keep her diary. She died in 1955 aged 83, outliving Jack by quite some time.

1956 and Beyond

Both Joan and Becky lived deeply into the Twentieth Century, Joan until 1971 and Becky until 1992. Both girls married. Joan did not assume her husbands' last names (she was married twice), a mark of feminism that Becky thought was silly.

Becky remained in the background until she got older. Then people who were interested in her father began to seek her and her memories out. Always a gregarious and friendly lady, she was happy to oblige. Her memories were happy ones as you might expect from a daughter who only saw her father when he took her out to amusement parks, shows, and restaurants. For her part, she said she was 10 years old before she realized her dad was famous.

Joan, though, remained very much Jack London's daughter. She was heavily involved in the union movement, particularly on behalf of agricultural workers. She was a devoted socialist, and she even corresponded with Leon Trotsky (who was not that far away, having fled Russia for Mexico). With her various activities, she kept in the news, and in 1935 she stopped by Hollywood and visited Clark Gable on the set of Call of the Wild. Clark's film and the book actually have little in common and if Jack had been alive and he surely would have rolled over in his grave.

References and Further Reading

The Oxford Handbook of Jack London, Jay William, Oxford University Press, 2017.

Jack London: An American Life, Earle Labor, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013.

Wolf: The Lives of Jack London, James Haley, Basic Books, 2010.

Jack London: A Life, Alex Kershaw, St. Martin's Press, 1997.

Jack London: A Biography, Dan Dyer, Scholasitics, Inc., 1997.

Jack London, Charmian Kittredge London, 3 Volumes, Mills and Boon, Ltd., 1921.

Jack London and His Times: An Unconventional Biography, Joan London, The Book League of America, 1939. A volume for loan is available on the Open Library website.

Jack London's Women, Clarice Stasz, University of Massachussetts Press, 2001.

"Jack London's Dark Side", Johann Hari, Slate, August 15, 2010.

"The Call of Kind: Race in Jack London's Fiction", Susan Nuernberg, Dissertation, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 1990.

Jack London's Racial Lives: A Critical Biography, Jeanne Campbell Reesman, University of Georgia Press, 2009.

Letters of Jack London, Volumes 1 - 3, Jack London; Earle Labor, Robert Leitz, and I. Milo Shepard (Editors); Stanford University Press, 1988.

"Jack London", Spartacus Educational.

"Erie County Penitentiary Records Are Now in Ancestry - We Found a Familiar Name!", Grosvenor Room Genealogy & Local History, July 25, 2015.

"Prices and Wages by Decade: 1890-1899", University of Missouri Libraries

Wages and Hours of Labor, 1890-1906: Retail Prices of Food, 1890-1906, Bulletin of the Department of Commerce and Labor, July, 1906.

Jack London International. A German website but with an English version.

Jack London State Historic Park, http://www.jacklondonpark.com.

Jack London, Roy Tennant and Clarice Stasz, Sonoma State University, london.sonomoa.edu. A resource site which includes most of Jack's writings in web-reader-friendly (HTML) format.

"William Chaney", Clarice Stasz, Jack London at Sonoma State University, london.sonomoa.edu, 2005.

"Charmian Kittredge London", Clarice Stasz, Jack London at Sonoma State University, london.sonomoa.edu, 2006.

"Joan London", Clarice Stasz, Jack London at Sonoma State University, london.sonomoa.edu.

"Bess 'Becky' London Fleming", Clarice Stasz, Jack London at Sonoma State University, london.sonomoa.edu, 2006.

"The Fox Sisters and the Rap on Spiritualism", Karen Abbott, Smithsonian, October 30, 2012.

"In the Joints of Their Toes", Edward White, Paris Review, November 4, 2016

"Jack London at Utah State University: Life on the Road" Utah State Universities Digital Libraries, 2017.

"The Inuit Paradox: How Can People Who Gorge on Fat and Rarely See a Vegetable Be Healthier Than We Are?", Patricia Gadsby and Leon Steele, Discover, 2004.

The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, Charles Darwin, John Murray (Publisher), 1871.

"Anna Strunsky", Spartacus Educational.

"A True Champion vs. The 'Great White Hope'". John Ridley, Morning Edition, National Public Radio, July 2, 2010

"Jeff a Fighter, Johnson a Boxer," Says Jack London, Jack London, New York Herald, June 25, 1910.

Johnson vs. Jeffries, Jack London, New York Herald, July 5, 1910

"Jack London: Russo-Japanese War Correspondent", John Mancini, Military History (Reprinted on History.net).

"Jack London", Internet Movie Data Base.

"Jack London Dies Suddenly On Ranch", The New York Times, November 23, 1916.

"SMU Pharma Prof Examines Author Jack London's Medicine Kit", Christian Kallen, Sonoma Index-Tribune, (Reprinted: samuelmerrit.edu, Samuel Merritt University), August 15, 2017.

"Two Big Mistakes That Almost Killed Jack London During 'The Cruise of the Snark'", Andre Stojka, Listen2Read, March 9, 2016."

"On High Seas: Jack London's Photography on the Cruise of the Snark", Phillip Prodger, Antiques Magazine, February 6, 2015

To Tell the Truth, Bud Collyer (Host), Polly Bergen (Panelist), Ralph Bellamy (Panelist), Kitty Carlisle Hart (Panelist), Tom Poston (Panelist), March 31, 1959; To Tell the Truth on the Web, 1956-67 Episode Guide, CBS Nighttime Series.

"Jeff, It's Up To You!", Finis Farr, American Heritage, Volume 15, Issue 2, February, 1964.

Making of America, University of Michigan. A web site that has a number of old magazines online, including the Overland Monthly.

History of the Great Lakes, John Mansfield (Editor), J. H. Beers and Company, 1899.

"The History of Urinary Stones: In Parallel with Civilization", Ahmet Tefekli and Fatin Cezayirli, Scientific World Journal, 2013.

Houdini!!!: The Career of Ehrich Weiss: American Self-Liberator, Europe's Eclipsing Sensation, World's Handcuff King and Prison Breaker, Kenneth Silverman, HarperCollins, 1996.

The Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America's First Superhero, William Kalush and Larry Sloman, Atria, 2006

Sailor on Horseback: A Biographical Novel of Jack London, Irving Stone, Doubleday, 1938.

Oxford Dictionary of English, Angus Stevenson (Editor), Oxford University Press, 2010.

"Joan London Miller, 70; Daughter of the Novelist", New York Times, January 21, 1971.

"Jack London's Daughter Is a Yarn Spinner, Too", David Carpenter, Los Angeles Times, October 9, 1988.

 

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