In this paper it will portray Jack London's life and his experiences. Jack London's life experiences in his writing, voyages, and adventures have influenced his writing in many different ways. Jack London was born in San Francisco on January 12, 1876, of the son of an astrologer father, William Henry Chaney, and a science-conducting, spiritualist mother and music teacher, Flora Wellman. London grew up believing that he was the child of John London, the man Flora subsequently married and who gave the child his name. London grew up in and around Oakland, California, in a family that was both poor and rootless. They had moved six times in one year. London schooling started when he was at the age of 20. He attended college for only one semester. While in college he achieved great prosperity, was also among the highest paid writers in the world. He attended the University of California, Berkeley, in 1897 to 1898. In April 1900, London married Bessie Mae Maddern, a tutor and they divorced in 1905. Then he married Clara Charmian Kittredge in November 1905. The children from the first marriage were Joan and Bess. In the second marriage there was Joy, and she died in 1910 (Dyer n.p.g).
Jack London's childhood was one of loneliness, insecurity, and deprivation. The reality was that the London's were never terribly poor. Like many other sensitive and intelligent children who had been lonely and unloved, London found refuge in books and became a voracious reader. He was not the typical bookworm. At the age of sixteen the Oakland Public Library borrowed money to buy a fishing sloop and begun a career as an Oyster pirate. As an Oyster pirate it was an exciting, and dangerous way for a boy to make a living and London was so good at it that he gained the title of "Prince of the Oyster Pirates" (Bryan 1809). The brush of law convinced him to change sides and pursue his former confederates as an agent f the shore police.