The Call of the Wild (Annotated)

John (Jack) London was born John Griffith Chaney in San Francisco in 1876. London was the last name of his stepfather, whom his mother married later that year. A journalist, novelist and social activist, London was one of the first American authors to become wealthy from writing and was an international celebrity. His most famous works were The Call of the Wild and White Fang, both of which were set in the Klondike during the Gold Rush. London had traveled to the Klondike at the age of 21. He had a difficult time there, and like many others of his fellow travelers, he was under-nourished and became ill with scurvy. London began his writing career at a time when popular magazines were experiencing a boom due in part to the development of new printing technologies that lowered production costs. The rapid growth of the magazine industry increased the demand for short fiction. In 1900, London made about $2,500 from writing, the equivalent of more than $75,000 today. He sold The Call of the Wild to The Saturday Evening Post for $750 in 1903, and the book publisher Macmillan brought the story to market in book form. The publisher promoted it heavily and it became a major success. London was part of a radical literary group in San Francisco called "The Crowd." He was intensely pro-union and a strong advocate for socialism and workers' rights, topics that found their way into his books. London died at the age of 40 at the 1,000-acre ranch he had bought in Sonoma County, CA, 11 years earlier. He loved the ranch, about which he once wrote, "Next to my wife, the ranch is the dearest thing in the world to me." It is likely that the scurvy and other illnesses he had contracted on his various travels around the world contributed to his early demise.