Jack London was a writer, but more than that, he was an adventurer who wrote about his adventures. Growing up working class in San Francisco, London diligently scrounged out a life riding trains, pirating oysters, working on a sealing ship, and working at a cannery, all the while using his free time to hole up in libraries reading novels and travel books. A harrowing voyage aboard a sealing ship, where he and the crew were almost killed by a typhoon, convinced him to start writing stories.
After a brief time on the east coast and a stint in the Yukon mining for gold, London returned to California. He published his stories in the
Overland Monthly
, which prompted him to become more disciplined in his writing. He published numerous novels over the years, including
The Call of the Wild
, a story about a dog who becomes a sled dog in the Yukon,
The People of the Abyss
, which heavily critiqued capitalism, and
John Barleycorn
, a memoiristic novel that detailed his struggles with alcoholism.
With quotes from the array of Jack London’s writings, readers will get a sense of his life as well as a keen yearning for undertaking their own adventures.