Jack London
White Fang
Jack London was born on 12th January,
1876 in San Francisco. His mother was
Flora Wellman, a spiritualist, and his
father—her common-law husband,
William Henry Chaney—was a travelling
astrologer. In September, 1876, Flora
married John London and Jack took his
name.
London grew up in poverty. The family
moved to Oakland in 1878, travelling on
to Almeda in 1881, and two farms, before
ending up back in Oakland in 1886. Here,
London’s mother ran a boarding house
and he himself helped out by working as
a newspaper boy; in a bowling alley and
on an ice wagon. At this time, thanks to
the Oakland Public Library, he became an
avid reader.
After leaving school, London worked in
a cannery; as an oyster pirate in San
Francisco Bay; as a deputy patrolman for
the California Fish Patrol and as an able
seaman on a ship to Hawaii, Japan and
the Bering Sea. After this voyage, he worked in a jute mill for 10 cents an hour.
In 1893 London’s story, Story of a
Typhoon off the Coast of Japan won first
prize in a competition for young writers
sponsored by the San Francisco Morning
Call.
In 1894 London joined ‘Kelly’s Army’,
which was the Western part of ‘Coxey’s
Industrial Army of the Unemployed’,
which was marching on Washington D.C.
After this, London was arrested in Buffalo,
New York, for vagrancy and spent 30 days
in jail. On his release, he returned to
Oakland via Canada.
In 1896, London joined the Socialist
Labour Party. Later that year he entered
the University of California at Berkeley,
but in 1897 he joined the Klondike Gold
Rush. He married in 1900.
In 1902 London lived in the East End of
London; his experiences there resulted in
The People of the Abyss (1903).
When The Call of the Wild was
published, in 1903, it was an immediate success, and it has been translated into
nearly ninety languages. The Sea-Wolf
was published in 1904 and White Fang in
1906.
Jack London’s love life was as colourful
as his writing: he left his wife in 1903 and
had a passionate affair with the author
Anna Strunsky, before marrying Charmain
Kittredge in 1905.
For the rest of his life, London travelled
extensively, continuing to write and to be
politically active. He died in 1916.
Notes by Lesley Young
The music on this recording is taken from the NAXOS and MARCO POLO catalogues
RIMSKY–KORSAKOV
Night on Mount Triglav & Voyevoda
8.220438
Slovak PO/Rezucha
TCHAIKOVSKY The Tempest
8.550137
CRSO (Bratislava) / Lénard
SMETANA The Fisherman
8.223705
Slovak RSO (Bratislava) / Stankovsky
