Jack London

Author and Adventurer

Klondike

In the summer of 1897, desperate to escape his life as a "work beast" in common labor, London sailed for Juneau with his brother-in-law James H. Shepard, determined to strike it rich in the Alaskan gold rush. A year later, broke and ill, perhaps with scurvy, London abandoned his Klondike adventure. He found no gold dust, but he came away with rich nuggets of experience that inspired some of his best tales.

In his Klondike stories, involving people in fundamental struggles with nature's indifference and cruel power, London could seek basic truths about humankind. As London later wrote in an autobiographical sketch for the Macmillan Company, "It was in the Klondike that I found myself. There, nobody talks. Everybody thinks. You get your perspective. I got mine."

Jack London. The Son of the Wolf, first edition, Boston and New York, Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1900.
RB 338638

This volume is Jack London's first published book. London became a professional writer in 1899 with the publication of such short stories as "A Thousand Deaths," "To the Man on Trail," and "White Silence."

Almost overnight, London had begun to achieve fame (he was sometimes called the "Kipling of the Klondike"), and in 1900 Houghton, Mifflin and Company offered to publish London's Alaskan tales in book form, to be called The Son of the Wolf.

Jack London. The Call of the Wild, first edition, New York, Macmillan Company, 1903.
RB 337700

The Call of the Wild, London's best-known work, is the classic tale of the dog Buck's kidnapping, rejection of civilization, and eventual transformation into the wild leader of a wolf pack. At another level, it is an allegory, in which London uses an animal's story to explore unconscious human instincts.

Published first as a serial in the Saturday Evening Post, the novel quickly became a bestseller and a classic of American literature and firmly established London's fame.

Jack London. White Fang, first edition, New York, Macmillan Company, 1906.
RB 11561

In 1904, after the enormous success of The Call of the Wild, London wrote to George Brett at Macmillan to propose a companion book: "I'm going to reverse the process. Instead of devolution or de-civilization of a dog, I'm going to give the evolution, the civilization of a dog -- development of domesticity, faithfulness, love, morality, & all the amenities & virtues." The resulting novel, White Fang, appeared in 1906.

The Jack London papers also include an autograph manuscript for White Fang.
JL 1407

Jack London. Autograph letter to the editor of the Youth's Companion, February 5, 1902.
Acq. #1594

London's superb Klondike story, "To Build a Fire," was published in its first version in the Youth's Companion in the May 29, 1902 issue. In this letter, he responds to queries from the editor concerning certain facts and events in the story. Writing directly from his own experiences, London forcefully emphasizes the veracity and accuracy of the details in his story of a man's desperate determination to survive in the face of nature's harshest punishment.

Jack London. Yukon diary, autograph manuscript, 1898.  
JL 1447

This diary tells of London's trip out of the Klondike. He describes the crippling agony of scurvy, and the relief provided by a few raw potatoes and tomatoes. He also paints a vivid and humorous picture of the torment wrought by squadrons of giant mosquitoes.

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