Interesting Facts About Jack London

Do you know?

➤ London's mother (Flora Wellman) was a spiritualist and his biological father (William Chaney) was an astrologist.

Flora Wellman came from a wealthy home in Massillon, Ohio. She believed she could communicate with the dead, a belief called Spiritualism that reached heights of popularity as she grew up in the 1840s. She also believed she could predict the future.

 

Flora Wellman

➤ While she was pregnant, London's mother tried to kill herself. 

When William Chaney found out that Flora was pregnant, he beat her and demanded that she have an abortion. After the altercation, Flora attempted suicide twice in the course of two days. First, she overdosed on laudanum. When that attempt failed, she tried to shoot herself in the head, but her second attempt was thwarted by a gun malfunction.

➤ London's foster mother was a former slave named, Virginia (Jennie) Prentiss. 

After his birth, Virginia Prentiss took the infant Jack London into her home because Flora didn't want him and was too sick to care for him. 

➤ At the age of 18, London was arrested for vagrancy. 

➤ London wrote 1,000 words every day.

➤ London was briefly a student at the University of California at Berkley. 

In September of 1896 Jack London became a student at the University of California at Berkley, but he was only a student there for one semester before running out of money.

➤ He was the first author in the world to become a millionaire from his writing.

➤ Like many aspiring writers, young Jack London had many other jobs.

 These included paperboy, journalist, gold-miner, coal-shoveller, and vagrant (not much of an occupation, and it landed him in jail after he went to see Niagara Falls by moonlight).

➤ Jack London died at the age of 40.