Jack London

Jack London fought his way up from a life of hard, factory labor in Oakland, California, to become the highest paid, most popular author of his time. His writings questioned the meaning of life and death and captured the essence of the natural struggle to survive. Drawing on his own experiences in Alaska, at sea, and as a hobo, he wove his thoughts into adventurous stories, becoming a prolific author in expressing his own struggle …

…employed more than a hundred people with a payroll of $3000 a month. Earning $75,000 a year, he was never less than $25,000 in debt and often $50,000 in debt. Jack London had become accustomed to an expensive way of living; he spent money light-heartedly and habitually. Often entertaining more guests than he could afford. He had become dependent on a variety of painkilling drugs, and on November 22, 1916 he lasted a fourteen-hour bout with a gastro-intestinal type of uremia.