"I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn in a .
brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dryrot. I would rather be superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time." (Quote, Jack London).
I would like to share with you some information on one of the most prolific writers that has ever shared this world with us. Jack London was a renowned Classical Author that wrote many stories that he reflected with his own life's private struggles and accomplishments. Jack London was the most flamboyant literary representative of the Strenuous Age in America. At the height of that era his name was a by word for rugged individualism and romantic adventure, and his private life seemed to be in every major newspaper in the country. It seems that he dominated the public imagination as few authors have ever done, before or since.
Jack London grew up in the slum area of Oakland, California, a place which he later called "the cellar of society." Born out of wedlock on January 12, 1876, he never knew his father, William Henry Chaney, who had left Jack's mother, Flora Wellman, .
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before jack's birth. On September 7, 1876, Flora Wellman married John London, a widower with two daughters of his own, from whom her son Jack took his name.
By the age of fifteen, London's childhood was filled with hardship and despair. He started to work hard at a very young age for his father was ill, and he was the one responsible to help support the family. After living on several ranches and farms in California, Jack completed his grammar school in Oakland. Between the ages of 14 to 17, he moved about the country, he was an oyster pirate, a longshoreman, a seaman, and a leader on the Oakland waterfront by virtue of his gifts as a tough guy.