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JACK LONDON
(1876-1916)
The famous American novelist Jack London (pen-name of John Griffith) came of an 
extremely poor family. Even during his school years he had to support himself by selling 
newspapers and doing other small jobs. Then he tried to work at a factory but it was too hard for 
a fourteen-year old boy. So he ran away from home and dreamed of becoming a pirate. At the 
age of seventeen he became a sailor, left his ship for a factory once more, and the factory for an 
electric station. When he found himself out of work he joined a group of unemployed that was 
traveling east. For several years Jack London led the life of a tramp in the United States and 
Canada and saw all there was to see of the dark side of American life. Some of the difficulties he 
met during the first years of his literary work are described in “Martin Eden”.
He read a great many books on socialism and this helped him to understand that which he 
saw, although he never became a real Marxist. Jack London was a member of the American 
Socialist Party and came into close contact with the working class movement. In his novel “The 
Iron Heel” he gives a picture of the working class struggle.
During the sixteen years of his literary career, London published about fifty books, short 
stories, novels and other works.
In some of his books J. London has given very vivid pictures of the rough, hard life in the 
North, away from the great centers of civilization: “The Son of the Wolf”, “The Children of the 
Frost”, etc. His tales of animal life in Canada are very much liked by boys and girls all over the 
world (“White Fang”, “Jerry of the Islands”, “Michael Brother Jerry” and others). His best works 

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reflect the social contradictions of capitalist society. Among these is “Martin Eden”, which was 
published in 1909.
Summary 
This part outlines the results of the Civil War in America and development of realism in 
American literature of the 19th century. There is a brief presentation of life and work of the first 
American realists – Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, O. Henry, Frank Norris, Jack London.