Jack London

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Jack London (1900) Signature of Jack London

Jack London (born January 12, 1876 in San Francisco as John Griffith Chaney , † November 22, 1916 in Glen Ellen , California ) was an American writer and journalist . He gained fame primarily through his adventure novels Ruf der Wildnis und Wolfsblut as well as through the adventure novel The Sea Wolf, which was filmed several times, and the autobiographically influenced novel Martin Eden . These works also give an overview of the geographical areas he knew: the arctic north of North America ( Klondike ) at the time of the gold rush , California and the Pacific and seafaring on this ocean. As a successful writer, London confessed itself in his political essays , shaped by hard experiences in childhood, often to the lower strata of society and open to socialism , albeit with a very individual stamp. He was a member of the Socialist Party of the United States until shortly before his death, and in 1901 he unsuccessfully applied for the office of Mayor of Oakland for this party . His literary work has been internationally successful and has been translated into numerous languages. During his lifetime, London was the most successful author in the world.

Life

origin

Plaque on the site of London's birthplace in San Francisco at the corner of 3rd Street and Brennan

London was born in San Francisco as the illegitimate child of Flora Wellman (1843–1922), who came from a middle-class family, and of the unsteady philosopher , astrologer and traveling preacher William Henry Chaney (1821–1903); he had given himself the nickname "Professor". Chaney, however, later denied his paternity to the 21-year-old London on his letter request, as he was unable to father . London's biographers today almost unanimously assume Chaney's paternity, but according to the sources it is not clearly verifiable.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported on June 4, 1875 that Chaney had dramatically chased Flora Wellman, who was also spiritually inclined, out of the house for refusing to consent to an abortion . She then attempted suicide by overdosing on opium and shooting herself in the temple; however, she could be saved.

On September 7, 1876 Flora Wellman married from Pennsylvania dating veteran , carpenter , temporary businessman and farmer John London, who is also a seller of sewing machines operated. The couple moved to Oakland , where John London opened a grocery store. The stepfather recognized the boy as his son, which gave him his surname London. The family lived mostly in poor conditions and moved within the San Francisco Bay Area several times in the following years , as John London repeatedly tried to make his fortune as a farmer on new properties; all these attempts failed.

In 1886 the family moved back to Oakland. John London was largely disabled at the time , and his wife and young Jack London had to contribute to the family's income. During this time he lived mostly in the household of the former slave Virginia Prentiss, who was something like the boy's foster mother - paid by mother Flora - and a more formative reference person of his childhood than the birth mother. Both "mothers" survived Jack London. In the last years of their lives, the two women lived in one household.

Childhood and youth

London at the age of nine with his dog Rollo, 1885

Even as a child, Jack London had to contribute to the family's income as a newsboy, helper in a pub and as a worker in a canning factory. At the age of 13, London left high school and became involved in everyday work. Child labor in the United States still existed in 1900 for two million children under the age of 16 who worked in the countryside or in factories. Developmental disorders and damage to health were the result. It was not until 1905 that laws were passed that somewhat alleviated the misery.

As a child, London read novels, mostly from public libraries . One of his first influences was the English writer Ouida . His great patron was the writer Ina Coolbrith , later famous in San Francisco , who at that time was employed as a librarian at the Oakland City Library ; she advised young Londoners who were hungry for reading and education in their choice of reading, took his educational efforts seriously and encouraged him in his self-study. In a letter from 1901, he describes Coolbrith as the most important spiritual reference person at this time of his life and calls her his "goddess".

At the age of 15, London left the Cole Grammar School. To support himself and his family, he worked twelve to eighteen hours a day in Hickmott's canning factory for an hourly wage of ten cents. Eventually he borrowed $ 300 from his black wet nurse, former slave Virginia Prentiss, bought a boat with the money he borrowed, became the youngest oyster pirate on San Francisco Bay, and sold his wares in Oakland Market; The illegal harvesting of oysters for trade purposes enjoyed popular approval in the Bay Area, which is rich in oysters, and was mostly tolerated by the authorities. After his boat was set on fire and sunk by a group of oyster pirates at odds with his team, London joined the Bay Area Fisheries Police as a volunteer member in the fight against illegal Chinese shrimp catchers and Greek salmon poachers ; he ended this activity at the age of 17.

London spent some time at sea (including as a seal hunter on a trip to Japan ). After his return, his mother encouraged him to write a report about the trip. Long before he decided to become a writer, he wrote "Typhoon off the Coast of Japan", London's first text, published November 12, 1893, and won first prize in the San Francisco Call newspaper . In 1894 he joined a protest march by the unemployed who wanted to walk to Washington. He was arrested as a tramp and jailed for 30 days in Buffalo. Then he got by as a hobo . In 1896/97 he studied at the University of Berkeley after having passed the demanding entrance examination in just three months in the summer of 1896. He took courses in English, geometry, American history, and physics. But he broke off his studies after only one semester in order to financially support the family by working in a laundry. London never graduated from college. He was convinced that he could study more quickly on his own than among the naive students. In the same year he decided to become a writer without being able to put this project into practice at the time.

He shoveled coal for $ 30 at the Oakland Cogeneration Plant, the same job previously done by two men for $ 40 each. In this way he understood the principle of capitalism: the workers were exploited in order to increase profits. In Pennsylvania, he was imprisoned through no fault of his own. Thereupon he made the decision never to allow himself to be suppressed again. The image of the social abyss of run-down men, slipped into misery, who were just like him when they were younger, matured his idea of ​​no longer doing physical work. He decided to use his head and frantically began to educate himself in many ways. He read the works of Karl Marx , Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer . He recognized himself in their ideas. This is how his political awareness developed. London committed itself to everything that could help the poor and the workers to free themselves from the abyss of poverty. At the same time, he gave passionate speeches in Oakland Town Hall Square that drove him to prison.

He himself describes the period around the mid-1890s when London's first literary efforts fell:

“The worst for the novice writer are the long periods of drought, in which no check comes from a publisher and everything that can be seized is already pledged. ... My problem was that I had no one to advise me. I didn't know anybody who wrote or tried to write. I didn't even know a reporter. I also found that I had to forget practically everything that the teachers and professors of literature in high school and university had taught me in order to succeed in writing. "

- Jack London King alcohol, quoted. n. Alfred Hornung: Jack London. Adventure of life. Lambert Schneider 2016, p. 110

Alaska Gold Rush

Gold prospectors are waiting for their claims to be registered
Replica of Jack London's cabin at Stewart Island (1898) in Dawson on the Yukon River

News of gold discoveries on the Klondike River arrived in California . The gold rush caught him and on July 25, 1897, he was one of the first prospectors to sail north with his brother-in-law James Shepard - the husband of his stepsister Eliza from John London's first marriage - and other adventurous people. He climbed the dangerous, steep Chilkoot Pass several times and covered more than 600 kilometers on the Yukon River to get to his destination. In the Yukon Territory he staked a claim and registered it in Dawson with the number 54. He spent the winter with other gold prospectors in a hut, where he read Charles Darwin's major work The Origin of Species . Because of great privation, London fell ill with scurvy . The illness forced him to abandon the project.

London learned camaraderie in Alaska. Anyone who wants to get along in the wilderness alone will die there. The main characters in his later narratives are people who strive to help other people survive. For London, the adventure on the Yukon was a brutal, fatal endeavor and the experience that changed his life.

Breakthrough as a writer

London returned to California penniless and tried again as a writer. He received around 100 rejections from newspapers and publishers before he could publish his first volume of short stories . The stories hit the nerve of the times as personally experienced descriptions of the extreme climatic conditions of the arctic winter and the longing for the unknown, for unusual people and wild animals and were a great success. London soon became a celebrity and bestselling author, mainly through its animal stories and his stories of the hard life of ordinary people .

One of the short stories from 1899 was The White Silence (Engl. The White Silence ). The metaphor "the white silence" stands for the landscape of the Yukon, shaped by snow and ice, and a callous nature. Nature is empty and silent. The “white silence” can only be overcome through connection with other people.

In 1900, London made the breakthrough as a writer with the story An Odyssey of the North (English An Odyssey of the North ). He went to fame in a flash, earning $ 2,500 that year. His popular stories for the magazine market were direct, approachable, and powerful. He made a rule of writing 1,000 words a day. He never deviated from that. As a result, he received numerous lucrative orders.

Covert research in the East End of London

In People of the Deep , Jack London wanted to portray the miserable living conditions in London's East End, the city's collecting basin for immigrants and the underprivileged. In the summer of 1902 he lived there as an undercover reporter for months in the middle of the slums. He illustrated his report with many photographs. He used to a handy Kodak - roll film camera of the first generation. London said of People of the Deep that it was his favorite book. In his own words he brought in more of his life than in any other of his books. He observed how hardship and hardship in this urban environment changed and destroyed people. "The men of the ghetto are the leftovers, a depraved bunch, left to their own devices to become more depraved." He didn't see them as types, but as individuals, and they knew it. That's why they trusted him. You can tell by the fact that they are so relaxed in his photographs. This is both a testimony and recognition of his ability to enter into relationships with people. However, the book had only modest success. Instead, 1903 was the year of Jack London's greatest success to date with the novel Call of the Wild . The biggest newspapers in the country were now open to him, including those of press tycoon William Hearst .

As a war correspondent in Korea

The Sea Wolf manuscript was completed on January 6, 1904. The next day, London embarked for Yokohama . William Hearst had offered to travel to Korea as a reporter , where war had broken out between Russia and Japan over control of Korea and Manchuria . However, London was not granted entry to Korea from Tokyo. So he decided to secretly travel to North Korea on a sailing ship. He followed the Japanese troops there, but had to be careful not to be discovered by them. He never succeeded in getting to the battlefields. So he could not write the stories he wanted to write, namely as a person directly involved in the fighting. The reports thus became like a novel with himself in the lead role, since another protagonist was not available to him. He was therefore unable to give an impression of the war in Korea. "I wasted five months of my life on this war," he said. Once he caught a Japanese officer's servant stealing from him and beat him. He was then arrested. It was only through the personal mediation of President Theodore Roosevelt , an admirer of Jack London, that the Japanese military refrained from a court martial and sent him back to the United States.

South Seas voyage

His novels, reports and series of articles published in quick succession made him wealthy in a very short time. With the income from his letter, he had the Snark yacht built according to his own designs. The costs exceeded the plan many times over. Completion was delayed by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake . London experienced the earthquake of the century and wrote an eyewitness report about it as a special correspondent for the weekly magazine Collier’s .

With the Snark , London undertook a voyage planned as a world tour. The idea was to cross the South Seas, visit China, Europe, the Mediterranean, get to know the Danube to Vienna as well as the Baltic Sea and St. Petersburg. In 1907, together with his second wife Charmian and a crew he had put together, he started the long delayed voyage on the self-designed ship. Thousands of visitors stood at the pier when the Snark left . The trip to London and his wife had been announced in the media well in advance. The trip first led to the Hawaii islands annexed by the USA in 1898 , first to Honolulu . There London became the "salon lion". He was introduced to the famous outrigger club. Everyone wanted to be in their company. He regularly gave lectures on literature or his political intentions.

London made itself the lawyer for the disenfranchised and discriminated Hawaiians. He was particularly interested in the leprosy sufferers on the island of Molokai , which he visited. Regardless of possible contagion through the disease, London took part in a horse race of the lepers as a spectator and hoped to draw the attention of the public in the USA to the situation and living conditions of the lepers and their anti-colonial resistance against the white colonial rulers with their imperialist organs of power to be able to. In the way of life of lepers from different countries of origin, London recognized a multi-ethnic community of sick and carers and a “well-functioning democracy of suffering and relief”. The impressions of London in the leprosy station on Molokai find their literary expression in the story Koolau - the leper (1908).

On Maui , London met the illegally dethroned Queen Liliʻuokalani . With his wife, pack horses and cattle herders he rode the volcano Haleakalā , the highest mountain on the island, descended into its crater and described the great effort of the multi-day tour in a bizarre nature. The next voyage led from October 7, 1907 to the Marquesas Islands , whose former inhabitants in the Taypee Valley had admired Herman Melville as extraordinarily beautiful and strong. London had been inspired by Melville's book since his youth, but waited in vain for these proud people, whose populations were decimated as a result of contagion by the whites. In Tahiti he met a white nature man who was looking for his modest happiness. On the Society Islands he was enthusiastic about the hospitality and generous gift-giving mood of the residents of Raiatea . From Bora Bora he described the friendliness of the people and stone fishing. It went on to Samoa , where London paid homage to Robert Louis Stevenson on the island of Apia , who had spent the last years of his life there and was also buried there.

The next stop was the Manua Islands and the Solomon Islands . Melanesia was a stark contrast to French Polynesia . The reputation as headhunters and cannibals preceded the inhabitants. They were considered unfriendly and barbaric. Blacks were exploited by white plantations. Infectious diseases prevailed in the population whose immune systems were not adapted to them. London took hundreds of pictures of people. The photographs acquired great ethnological importance at the beginning of the 20th century. On the Solomon Islands ( Guadalcanal ) the plan of a seven-year trip around the world was abandoned because of the persistent, unexplained illness of London. He was continually plagued by severe swelling and ulcers in his hands and feet. These were treated with toxic mercury chloride. They finally drove on to Sydney in Australia without the Snark , where London spent five weeks in hospital before starting on April 8, 1908 with a coal freighter for the return journey to California via Ecuador , Panama and New Orleans . The return was after 27 months of driving on July 28, 1909 in San Francisco.

The Beauty Ranch - Ecological Experiments

In California, Jack London recovered quickly. The biographical novel Martin Eden was published in September 1909 . He now devoted himself enthusiastically to expanding his ranch. In the summer of 1911, he and his wife retired to a farm he had bought in Sonoma County , which he called Beauty Ranch , and where both of them lived for the rest of his life. It has been preserved in its original state as a museum to this day. There he wanted to lead a "natural" existence as far away as possible from modern, industrialized , alienated life. That did not prevent him from, for example, pig breeding on a large scale with a focus on awarding prizes in public competition (which he succeeded in doing). Jack London saw himself more as a farmer than a writer. He stated that writing was merely a bread-and-butter job to maintain his ranch; He regarded this as his life's work.

London expanded the property, planted orchards, vineyards and cornfields. “In short, I am trying to do what the Chinese have been doing for 40 centuries, which is to till fields without commercial fertilizers. I'm rebuilding depleted hill country that was destroyed by our lavish pioneers in California. ”He read all about running a farm and developed his own way of managing the ranch and fields responsibly. This earned him the ridicule of the neighbors. An early believer in ecology , he grew organically before it became a widespread concept.

Jack London 1914

The wolf house

With the construction of the Wolf House in Sonoma in 1910, an almost 1500 m² property completely embedded in nature, Jack and Charmian wanted to fulfill a lifelong dream. It was another sign of Jack and Charmian's attachment to the earth, of being one with the earth. Considerable amounts of money were invested in this project, which added to the expenses for building the ranch. This worsened their financial situation, even though London made $ 70,000 in 1912. Jack tirelessly wrote novels, short stories, articles. In the meantime, his half-sister Eliza, whom he had appointed as the caretaker and whom he trusted fully, made sure that the ranch ran smoothly. She reined in Jack's tireless ideas for the ranch and kept an eye on making sure his plans were workable. Unfortunately for the couple, the Wolfshaus burned down on August 22, 1913 shortly before the planned move. The reason was negligence on the part of workers who abandoned oil rags that self-ignited.

The division of tasks allowed Jack and Charmian to embark on a new journey. In the summer of 1911 they crossed California and Oregon on a Studebaker covered wagon on the trail of the first pioneers. A few months later they sailed with a four-master, which they boarded in Baltimore , along the American coast from Cape Horn to Seattle .

More setbacks, alcohol, film business, back to Hawaii

1913 was a disastrous year for London. The harvest was destroyed by frost. His appendix was removed on July 8th and told that his kidneys were in poor condition because of the excessive alcohol consumption. He became a "writing slave". At the same time, in order to counteract the ever increasing costs, he also tried to open up new sources of income with films. With Bosworth Inc., which received the exclusive rights to all of London's film adaptations, a total of almost 7 silent films were made based on famous stories. The main role was mostly Hobart Bosworth . London saw the film as an ideal opportunity to develop his name as a book author into a brand. However, the films did not generate high revenue. The outbreak of the First World War also prevented the films from being distributed.

In his autobiographical novel John Barleycorn (German King Alcohol ) published in 1913, London addressed its alcoholism . In this book he claimed to have drunk large amounts of alcohol throughout his life, but without any enjoyment. How credible this statement is is controversial. The main thesis of the book is that alcohol is a demon that by convention allows men to be sociable, but ultimately leads them into addiction and destroys them. By contrast, London hoped that women would ban alcohol and create new forms of addiction-free sociability through women's suffrage . But it was not clear to him how this could look in concrete terms, which is all the more noticeable since London expresses itself very derogatory about forms of female sociability in the book. In any case, London had been a proponent of Prohibition from that time and until the end of his life , which was only politically implemented nationwide in the USA after his death.

In 1915, London was again longer in Hawaii with Charmian. After a long period of mediocre publications, valuable short stories were created here in a poetic writing style, which are among his best. Upon his return to California, London left the Socialist Party.

In the summer of 1916, Carl Gustav Jung made a lasting impression on London on the psychology of the unconscious . As a result, he saw his life path with different eyes. Now he understood better those forces at work in his life and in his work as a writer. "I'm on the edge of a world so new, so terrible, so wonderful that I'm almost afraid to look at it," he said to Charmian. But his health deteriorated noticeably that summer. He suffered from uremia and rheumatism and was constantly dependent on pain medication.

Private life

Jack London with his second wife Charmian in 1911

Jack London was married twice. The first marriage with his childhood friend Elizabeth "Bess" Maddern lasted from 1900 to 1904. This marriage came from the daughters Joan and Bessie "Becky". The family lived at times in Piedmont , California , where London wrote one of his most famous novels, Call of the Wild , during this time . The marriage was not a happy one. London had several extramarital relationships. With Anna Strunsky , a student at Stanford University , he had a passionate love affair since December 1899. Anna had lived in the family's bungalow since April 1901. The relationship with her ended in October 1902 after the disappointing birth of London's second daughter with Bess for Anna. London suffered above all from his wife's puritanical attitudes, while Bess suffered from her husband's alcohol and women escapades. In 1903 Jack London left the family and moved to San Francisco. He was never able to develop a lasting, stable fatherly relationship with his daughters as a father who would be present in their lives. At times he suffered from the fact that he wasn't really part of her life.

In San Francisco, through mutual friends, he met Charmian Kittredge , five years his senior , a fun-loving and educated hotelier's daughter, trained pianist and publishing secretary, whom he married in 1905. This second marriage turned out to be very happy and lasted until Jack London's death. Charmian was Jack's mate, his mate , and he was her mate . He could do anything with her, any adventure in the wilderness, as well as any intellectual discussion. However, the couple suffered the death of a daughter only 36 hours after birth in 1910 and a miscarriage later. After that, both of them realized that they would remain childless. The couple had an open marriage by mutual agreement . Serious biographers agreed that the relationship was an ideal life connection. Charmian survived Jack by almost 40 years, did not marry again and had her ashes buried next to that of her deceased husband under a boulder at Glen Ellen in what is now Jack London State Historic Park .

death

Jack and Charmian London's grave site in the grounds of their farm, now Jack London State Historic Park

Jack London died at the age of forty on his farm in Glen Ellen , Sonoma County. The earlier widely held view that London ended its own life is now considered controversial. There are some arguments in favor of urinary poisoning as the cause of death: Jack London suffered from kidney failure in the last few years of his life and had previously had to undergo several operations because of other health problems. His alcoholic illness or the pain reliever morphine he last took also may have contributed to his death. Treating ulcers with mercury supplements while sailing in Polynesia may also have contributed to his untimely death. Some biographers suspect that his circulatory system failed because of all the health problems .

On the other hand, it could speak in favor of London's suicide that London suffered from depression in its last years - for which there is also several third-party evidence in addition to autobiographical testimony - and that he repeatedly reports in his book John Barleycorn, as well as in other, autobiographical stories that he tried to commit suicide several times under the influence of alcohol.

There are indications for both hypotheses. The cause of his early death is ultimately unclear.

“I would rather be a magnificent meteor in which every atom glows wonderfully than a long-lived, sleepy planet. The real job of a human is to live, not just to exist. I will not waste my days extending them. I will use my time. "

- Jack London. An American original. Arte 2016

Estate and legacy

After Jack London's death, Charmian London became the chief heir and administrator of her husband's estate . The daughters, mother Flora, sister Eliza and his old nanny Virginia were provided for financially. Jack London left his ex-wife Bess exactly five dollars and the lifelong right to live in the formerly shared house in Oakland. Charmian London managed her husband's literary estate, while London's stepsister Eliza Shepard, with whom both Jack and Charmian had maintained a close relationship of trust, took care of the running of the farm with her son and his family. After Charmian London's death - Eliza had died before her - the Shepards inherited her entire fortune. Because of this, there are upheavals between the Shepards and the Abbotts (descendants of Jack London's daughter Joan), who continue to see themselves as Jack London's rightful heirs.

To the work

His views come into play in various of his writings (e.g. Die iron heel , Martin Eden ). Jack London's basic socialist attitude mixes with social Darwinist views in a way that is idiosyncratic from today's perspective, but is typical of the time . The poor, working population is crude and uncultivated in London's worldview, but in its irrepressible, often barbaric vitality, it is decidedly superior to the decadent upper and middle classes. In catfish this issue is particularly evident: a cultured, effeminate protagonist encounters a "wild" humans (although formed).

“I discovered that I didn't like living in the society salon. Intellectually, I was bored. I got sick mentally and morally. I remembered my intellectual and idealistic friends, my retired priests, dismissed professors, and decent and class conscious workers. I thought back to the days full of sun and the nights full of stars, where life was a wild beautiful wonder, a spiritual paradise of selfless adventure and ethical romances. And before me I saw, eternally shining and blazing, the Holy Grail. "

- Jack London What life means to me. quoted n. Alfred Hornung: Jack London. Adventure of life. Lambert Schneider, 2016, p. 97

This conflict between nature and culture also occurs in the call of the wild and in wolf blood . Here Jack London chooses a stolen dog as the protagonist. He has to prove himself as a sled dog in order to survive. He hears the call of the wolves in the forest, doesn't know what it is, but he has to answer it. It's the call of the wild. Finally he runs away with a pack of wolves. The tension couple wolf - dog develops, whereby in the wolf pack the vitality of nature is paired with the hard selection in the collective, against which the domesticated and thus decadent and weak house dog initially has no chance. In the fight in the relentless nature, however, the dog experiences a "reintegration into life in the wilderness", "gradually adapts to life outside the human community" and becomes the undisputed leader of a wolf pack. In the novel "The Call of the Wild" the dog Buck is a symbol, a kind of manual on how we can survive in a successful world. Buck is Jack London's alter ego , portraying the allegory of how one can succeed in a capitalist society. He must have self-control and resilience. He has to be able to adapt. For London this represents the tension between nature and culture , a problem that was also taken up by other writers at the turn of the 20th century. A similar contrast can be found, for example, in Selma Lagerlöf's novel The wonderful journey of little Nils Holgersson with the wild geese, which was published around this time , in which the house gander Martin first has to break free from the softening he has inherited from humans and prove himself in the flock of wild geese.

The emphasis on the wisdom of the collective in both a socialist and a social Darwinist form - views that today often appear to be mutually exclusive - was quite widespread as an intellectual movement around the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries and was discussed publicly and in intellectual circles around the world. An eclectic synthesis of the ideas of Karl Marx , Darwin , Schopenhauer and Nietzsche were not uncommon at the time, especially among artists. They can be found in a very similar form, for example, in the Swedish writer August Strindberg , a contemporary of Jack London.

Jack London published the short story The Unparalleled Invasion in the American magazine McClure's in 1910 . It is a futuristic report on the " Yellow Danger " and the fight against crises caused by explosive population growth in China. This story is one of the early works of science fiction - genres . Jack London's China in the 1970s is threatened with overpopulation. The "monstrous flood of life" becomes a threat of global proportions: "Now China stepped over the borders of its empire - simply by pouring itself over the adjoining territories with the certainty and the terrifyingly slow power of a glacier." In the story, the world for the problems that have arisen consists in destroying the entire population of China with bacteriological weapons and repopulating the depopulated country as part of a planned reconstruction from the western world. Since other military means fail because of the self-sufficiency of the Chinese empire, the use of biological weapons is presented as the only way to solve the "Chinese problem". The detailed description of such a genocide is carried out by Jack London without any moral objections. In the story, “yellow life” and “yellow populace” are used disparagingly. The short story, the title of which can be translated as "The Unprecedented Invasion", was later incorporated into The Strength of the Strong Jack London's short story collection, published in 1914 by Macmillan Publishers (United States of America) .

Everything London wrote contained a political message, and it was pretty much the same. He was angry with the bourgeoisie and enthusiastic about the Russian Revolution. Jack London was a great witness of his time. He closely followed all upheavals in America, which changed fundamentally in his time. Jack London was the most widely read author in the world during his lifetime.

Evolutionist and social Darwinist belief and the idea of ​​a humane society

Jack London, following the general attitude of his time, was convinced of the superiority of whites in the colonial powers over indigenous ethnic groups, for example in North America or the South Pacific. His writings remain stuck in the racist linguistic style of his time. This is also reflected accordingly in the early German translations. London read in the main work of Charles Darwin and the writings of the English sociologist Herbert Spencer at the Oakland High School in 1895/95 . He later met David Starr Jordan and came into contact with his teaching on evolution and eugenics at Berkeley University .

Darwin's idea of natural selection won over London, who used terms similar to Darwin when speaking of himself in the context of his tough existence as a tramp on the trains as a victory in the struggle for survival. He identified himself with survival in the competitive relationship of an existential competition and was proud to be able to survive here excellently. According to Alfred Hornung, the law of nature practiced by London corresponds to Darwin's evolutionist concept of the origin of species.

London's success as a tramp or even as a prison inmate in the constant struggle for the survival of the fittest was interpreted as a justification for his basically illegal behavior. In his confrontation with the stronger forces he is in a position comparable to that of competitors in the ruthless competition against large capitalist corporations and their methods of eliminating their competitors. In business, publicly sanctioned practices ignore human suffering not only but benefit from London's findings on these matters will in adventures of the track recorded (Engl. The Road 1907).

London also dealt with the emerging social Darwinism , with whose founder in Germany, Ernst Haeckel , he was in writing. London also accepted Haeckel's basic biogenetic rule , which is no longer considered valid today , according to which ontogenesis (in the narrower sense embryonic development ) recapitulates phylogenesis (evolution). London sent Haeckel a copy of his work Before Adam's Times , for which the latter thanked the author. Later London distanced itself again from Haeckel and his racist views.

London questioned the progress of industrialization. He compared modern, humane society with indigenous civilizations. He stated that there was no improvement. "The man has made no moral progress as an individual in the last ten thousand years, which I claim with certainty." This, he reasoned, among others, about the high and reprehensible extent of child labor , which did not exist in the early days of man.

Later, London developed the idea of ​​a global community based on the idea of ​​a world language , which he saw as an ideal in Hawaiian . With this idea, London overcame its earlier racist attitude in favor of ideas of a humane society, which also included the defense against cruelty to animals and the abolition of the death penalty .

Aftermath

An episode of Star Trek: The Next Century ( 19th Century Danger ) introduces a young page named Jack London, who is encouraged to become a writer by Mark Twain . Jack London is also introduced in the Lucky Luke volumes The Daily Star and Am Klondike . Jack London's time in Korea is dealt with in the volume "Adventure of a Youth" from the Corto Maltese comic series . The asteroid (2625) Jack London, discovered on May 2, 1976, and the Jack London Sea in the Far East of Russia are named after Jack London .

Based on the book The Book of Jack London published by Charmian London in 1921 , the 1943 adventure film Jack London was made .

Works

Jack London published more than 50 books between 1898 and 1916, including 27 novels, 6 autobiographical works, 4 dramas, political essays, reportages, collections of essays and 196 short stories.

(German translation, twelve-volume complete edition 1926–1932: Erwin Magnus )

Novels

  • On the white border. ( A Daughter of the Snows ), 1902 (also: Das Alaska-Mädchen)
  • The cruise of the Dazzler ( The Cruise of the Dazzler , 1902) (California)
  • Call of the Wild . ( The Call of the Wild , 1903) (Klondike, Dog Story); New and for the first time completely translated, with an afterword and comments by Lutz-W. Wolff, dtv, Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-423-14277-9 .
  • The Kempton-Wace Letters. 1903 (together with Anna Strunsky )
  • The sea wolf . ( The Sea-Wolf. 1904) (Sea History); Newly translated, with an afterword and comments by Lutz-W. Wolff, dtv, Munich 2014, ISBN 978-3-423-14364-6 .
  • The Game. 1905. (Prize boxer)
  • Wolf's Blood , White Tooth, the Wolfhound ( White Fang , 1906) (Klondike, California, Canine History); Newly translated, with an afterword and comments by Lutz-W. Wolff, dtv, Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-423-14239-7 .
  • Before the days of Adam ( Before Adam ), 1907 (early history of mankind)
  • The Iron Heel ( The Iron Heel ), 1908 ( dystopia ) completely in HTML
  • Martin Eden , New York 1909, 2nd ed. London 1910 (strongly autobiographical); Newly translated, with an afterword and comments by Lutz-W. Wolff, dtv, Munich 2016, ISBN 978-3-423-28081-5 .
  • The Lure of Gold ( Burning Daylight ), 1910 (Klondike, a "Sonoma County Roman"); New and for the first time completely translated, with an afterword and comments by Lutz-W. Wolff, dtv, Munich 2015, ISBN 978-3-423-14426-1 .
  • The Abysmal Brute , 1911 (A boxer flees corruption into the California wilderness)
  • Berande Island ( Adventure ), 1911 (Slavery in the Solomon Islands)
  • A son of the sun ( A Son of the Sun ), 1912 (South Seas stories is a businessman and adventurer)
  • The Scharlachpest ( The Scarlet Plague ), 1912 (science fiction story, humanity through disease nearly wiped)
  • Smoke Bellew / Alaska-Kid , 1912 (Alaska, episode novel from the time of the gold rush on the Klondike , naturalistic)
  • Kid & Co. (sequel to Alaska Kid)
  • The Moon Valley ( The Valley of the Moon , 1913) (London, England and California)
  • The Mutiny on the Elsinore ( The Mutiny of the Elsinore ), 1914th
  • The straitjacket ( The Star Rover , 1915, also published as The Jacket ) (penitentiary system / reincarnation)
  • The mistress of the Great House ( The Little Lady of the Big House ) in 1916 (California)
  • Jerry der Insulaner ( Jerry of the Islands ), 1917 (Pacific, dog story)
  • Michael, the brother of Jerry's ( Michael, Brother of Jerry ), 1917 (dog story, animal welfare)
  • The Wolf of Wall Street ( Hearts of Three ), 1918.
  • The murder office ( The Assassination Bureau Ltd ), 1963 (completed by Robert L. Fish , Thriller)

Short stories

Jack London's short stories have appeared in various compilations.

  • Siwash , 1929, (Berlin, Universitas, 1st edition)
  • Adventure of a balloonist. Unknown stories. Universitas Verlag, Munich 1979, ISBN 3 8004 0862 7
  • Master tales . Diogenes, Paperback 1993, ISBN 3-257-22647-0 .
  • Anthology for the Jack London Year: The best stories with 14 selected stories from the North, newly translated by Herbert Schnierle-Lutz. Anaconda, Cologne 2016, ISBN 978-3-7306-0352-9 .
  • Anthology of men's stories, women's stories , newly translated by Herbert Schnierle-Lutz, marixverlag, Wiesbaden 2018, ISBN 978-3-7374-1088-5

Factual reports

Essays / speeches

  • War of the Classes 1905 (speeches on socialism)
  • Revolution and Other Essays , 1909 (socialist thoughts)
  • The Human Drift , 1917.

Filmography

A selection of films based on novels, stories or motifs by Jack London in the course of film history :

Documentation

  • Jack London - An American Original, 2016, Arte, December 3, 2016 ( YouTube )

See also

  • Christopher McCandless (1968–1992), a student from a wealthy background, who was inspired, among other things, by London's novels, to move to Alaska to lead a nature-related, autonomous life.

literature

  • Jonathan Auerbach: Male call. Becoming Jack London. Duke Univ. Press, Durham et al. 1996, ISBN 0-8223-1820-2 .
  • Thomas Ayck : Jack London. With testimonials and photo documents. (= Rowohlt's monographs. 50244). 7th edition Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 2000, ISBN 3-499-50244-5 .
  • Robert Barltrop: Jack London. A biography. (= Ullstein book; 34490; Ullstein non-fiction book ). Ullstein, Frankfurt am Main et al. 1988, ISBN 3-548-34490-9 .
  • Rüdiger Barth , Marc Bielefeld: Jack London. In: Wild Poets. The greatest adventurers in world literature. Malik, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-89029-300-4 .
  • Lois A. Cuddy: Evolution and eugenics in American literature and culture, 1880-1940. Essays on ideological conflict and complicity. Bucknell University Press et al., Lewisburg, Pa. 2003, ISBN 0-8387-5555-0 .
  • Daniel Osborn Dyer: Jack London. A biography. Scholastic Press, New York 1997, ISBN 0-590-22216-3 .
  • Justin D. Edwards: Exotic journeys. Exploring the erotics of US travel literature, 1840-1930. University of New Hampshire, Hanover, NH et al. 2001, ISBN 1-58465-115-6 .
  • Christopher Gair: Complicity and resistance in Jack London's novels. From naturalism to nature. (= Studies in American literature. 22). Mellen, Lewiston et al. 1997, ISBN 0-7734-8719-0 .
  • Barbara S. Giehmann: Writing the Northland. Jack London's and Robert W. Service's Imaginary Geography. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-8260-4459-5 .
  • James L. Haley: Wolf: the lives of Jack London. BasicBooks, New York, NY 2011, ISBN 978-0-465-02503-9 .
  • Alfred Hornung: Jack London. Adventure of life. Lambert Schneider, Darmstadt 2016, ISBN 978-3-650-40157-1 .
  • Rolf Italiaander : Jack London. (= Heads of the 20th century. 88). Colloquium, Berlin 1978, ISBN 3-7678-0445-X .
  • Zhenkai Liu: Jack London in China (= reports from literary studies, dissertation University of Bremen, 1995) Shaker, Aachen 1997, ISBN 3-8265-2291-5 .
  • Alex Kershaw: Jack London. A life. Flamingo, London 1998, ISBN 0-00-654848-2 .
  • Michael Klein: The white silence. Jack London's path through the ice. Zsolnay, Vienna 2001, ISBN 3-552-05167-8 .
  • Michail Krausnick : Jack London . Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-423-31085-5 .
  • Earle Labor : Jack London: An American Life. Farrar Straus Giroux, New York 2013, ISBN 978-0-374-17848-2 .
  • Charmian London: Jack London. The adventure of a lifetime. Told about his wife. Universitas, Berlin 1976, ISBN 3-8004-0827-9 .
  • Rolf Recknagel : Jack London. Life and work of a rebel. Biography. 4th edition. Verlag Neues Leben, Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-355-00885-0 .
  • Jeanne Campbell Reesman: Jack London. A study of the short fiction (= Twayne's studies in short fiction . Volume 75). Twayne, New York 1999, ISBN 0-8057-1678-5 .
  • Jeanne Campbell Reesman: Jack London's racial lives: a critical biography. University of Georgia Press, Athens, Ga. Et al. 2009, ISBN 978-0-8203-2789-1 .
  • Hinrik Schünemann: Jack London. On-demand literary marketing in America in the early 20th century. (= European university publications . Series 14; Anglo-Saxon language and literature . 363). Lang, Frankfurt am Main et al. 2000, ISBN 3-631-35808-3 .
  • Clarice Stasz: Jack London's women. University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst 2001, ISBN 1-55849-301-8 .
  • Rebecca Stefoff: Jack London. An American original. Oxford University Press, Oxford et al. 2002, ISBN 0-19-512223-2 .
  • Irving Stone : At sea and in the saddle. Jack London - a life like a novel (= Ullstein book . Volume 22780). Ullstein, Frankfurt am Main et al. 1992, ISBN 3-548-22780-5 .
  • Georg Stefan Troller , Robert Lebeck (photos): The adventurer. The short, wild life of Jack London . Bertelsmann, Gütersloh 1968, DNB 458444049 .
  • Michel Viotte (in collaboration with Noël Mauberret): The many lives of Jack London. Knesebeck, Munich 2016, ISBN 978-3-86873-991-6 .

Web links

Commons : Jack London  - album with pictures, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Jack London  - Sources and full texts (English)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ About Jack London and the Socialist Party of the USA ( Memento from April 13, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) at kirjasto.sci.fi (English)
  2. ↑ Short biography of Flora Wellman-London at london.sonoma.edu
  3. ↑ Michail Krausnick: Jack London. P. 8.
  4. ^ John Sutherland: "Introduction to John Barleycorn ". In: John Barleycorn. Oxford University Press, Oxford 1998.
  5. ^ Thomas Ayck: Jack London. Rowohlt, Reinbek 2000, p. 15 f
  6. ↑ About the role of "Mammy" Virginia Prentiss in the life of Jack London at parks.ca.gov
  7. ↑ About Ina Coolbrith and Jack London at jacklondons.net ( Memento of the original from October 24th, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.jacklondons.net
  8. ^ Thomas Ayck: Jack London. P. 19 ff
  9. ↑ About Jack London's work with the regional fisheries police ( memento from March 17, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) on glanzundelend.de
  10. ^ Alfred Hornung: Jack London. Adventure of life. Lambert Schneider, 2016, p. 68.
  11. ↑ a b c d Kenneth K. Brandt in: Jack London. An American original. Arte 2016.
  12. ↑ Via Eliza and James Shepard at london.sonoma.edu
  13. ^ Alfred Hornung: Jack London. Adventure of life. Lambert Schneider, 2016, p. 107.
  14. ^ Jeanne Campbell Reesman in: Jack London. An American original. Arte 2016.
  15. ^ Alfred Hornung: Jack London. Adventure of life. Lambert Schneider, 2016, p. 111.
  16. ↑ Jack London. Martin Eden. dtv 2016, ISBN 978-3-423-28081-5 , p. 522.
  17. ↑ a b c d e f g h Jack London. An American original. Arte 2016.
  18. ^ A b Sue Hodson in: Jack London. An American original. Arte 2016.
  19. ↑ a b Jay Williams in: Jack London. An American original. Arte 2016.
  20. ↑ Original text from Jack London's eyewitness account of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake
  21. ^ Alfred Hornung: Jack London. Adventure of life. Lambert Schneider, 2016, p. 169.
  22. ^ Alfred Hornung: Jack London. Adventure of life. Lambert Schneider 2016, p. 176.
  23. ^ A b Alfred Hornung: Jack London. Adventure of life. Lambert Schneider, 2016, p. 183.
  24. ^ Alfred Hornung: Jack London. Adventure of life. Lambert Schneider, 2016, p. 166.
  25. ↑ Jack London: The Ride of the Snark. Cape. 8: The house of the sun. Verlag Neues Leben, Berlin 1972, pp. 89-103.
  26. ↑ Jack London: The Ride of the Snark. Verlag Neues Leben, Berlin 1972, p. 133.
  27. ↑ Jack London: The Ride of the Snark. Cape. 11: The nature man. Verlag Neues Leben, Berlin 1972, pp. 139–153.
  28. ↑ Jack London: The Ride of the Snark. Cape. 12: On the throne of plenty. New Life Publishing House, Berlin 1972, pp. 154–171.
  29. ↑ Jack London: The Ride of the Snark. Cape. 13: The stone fishing. Verlag Neues Leben, Berlin 1972, pp. 171–178.
  30. ↑ Jack London: The Ride of the Snark. New Life Publishing House, Berlin 1972, p. 234.
  31. ^ Alfred Hornung: Jack London. Adventure of life. Lambert Schneider, 2016, pp. 184-204.
  32. ↑ a b Official site of Jack London's ranch
  33. ↑ About Jack London and the Beauty Ranch as his life's work at jacklondons.net ( memento of the original from September 23, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.jacklondons.net
  34. ^ Sue Hudson in: Jack London. An American original. Arte 2016.
  35. ↑ Jack London: Martin Eden. dtv, 2016, ISBN 978-3-423-28081-5 , p. 525.
  36. ↑ Tony Williams in: Jack London. An American original. Arte, 2016.
  37. ↑ Clarize Stasz in: Jack London. An American original. Arte 2016.
  38. ^ Alfred Hornung: Jack London. Adventure of life. Lambert Schneider, 2016, p. 72.
  39. ^ Alfred Hornung: Jack London. Adventure of life. Lambert Schneider, 2016, p. 76.
  40. ^ Alfred Hornung: Jack London. Adventure of life. Lambert Schneider, 2016, p. 77.
  41. ↑ Jack London in the Find a Grave database . Retrieved September 19, 2017 (English).
  42. ↑ Jack London's last will london.sonoma.edu
  43. ^ About the relationship between Charmian London and Eliza Shepard london.sonoma.edu
  44. ↑ Helen Abbott (wife of Jack London's late grandson Bart) on Jack London and his legacy lotter.org
  45. ^ Alfred Hornung: Jack London. Adventure of life. Lambert Schneider, 2016, p. 136f.
  46. ↑ Jack London, The Unparalleled Invasion . Magazine: McClure's , July 1910.
  47. ↑ Title listed on Internet Speculative Fiction Database
  48. ^ The Strength of the Strong. Roy Tennant and Clarice Stasz, accessed November 14, 2016 .
  49. ↑ Walt Mervin: The Strength of the Strong: The Unparalleled Invasion. Roy Tennant and Clarice Stasz, accessed November 14, 2016 .
  50. ^ Alfred Hornung: Jack London. Adventure of life. Lambert Schneider, 2016, p. 11.
  51. ^ Alfred Hornung: Jack London. Adventure of life. Lambert Schneider, 2016, p. 63.
  52. ^ A b Alfred Hornung: Jack London. Adventure of life. Lambert Schneider, 2016, p. 221.
  53. ^ Alfred Hornung: Jack London. Adventure of life. Lambert Schneider, 2016, p. 37.
  54. ^ Alfred Hornung: Jack London. Adventure of life. Lambert Schneider, 2016, p. 50.
  55. ^ Alfred Hornung: Jack London. Adventure of life. Lambert Schneider, 2016, p. 139.
  56. ^ Alfred Hornung: Jack London. Adventure of life. Lambert Schneider, 2016, p. 47ff.
  57. ^ Alfred Hornung: Jack London. Adventure of life. Lambert Schneider, 2016, p. 222.
  58. ↑ Jack London: The straitjacket. 1979, p. 161 cit. in: Alfred Hornung: Jack London. Adventure of life. Lambert Schneider, 2016, p. 288.
  59. ^ Alfred Hornung: Jack London. Adventure of life. Lambert Schneider, 2016, p. 82f.
  60. ^ Alfred Hornung: Jack London. Adventure of life. Lambert Schneider, 2016, p. 292.
  61. ^ Alfred Hornung: Jack London. Adventure of life. Lambert Schneider, 2016, p. 296.
  62. ^ Alfred Hornung: Jack London. Adventure of life. Lambert Schneider, 2016, p. 10.
personal data
SURNAME London, Jack
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Chaney, John Griffith
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American writer and journalist
DATE OF BIRTH January 12, 1876
PLACE OF BIRTH San Francisco
DATE OF DEATH November 22, 1916
Place of death Glen Ellen , California