Jack London Biography

Dictionary of Literary Biography on Jack London

Jack London has been recognized as one of the most dynamic figures in American literature. Sailor, hobo, Klondike argonaut, social crusader, war correspondent, scientific farmer, self-made millionaire, global traveler, and adventurer, London captured the popular imagination worldwide as much through his personal exploits as through his literary efforts. But it is the quality of his writings, more than his personal legend, that has won him a permanent place in world literature and distinguished him as one of the most widely translated American authors. In 1914 Georg Brandes called him the best of the new twentieth-century American writers: "He is absolutely original," said the Danish critic, "and his style is singularly forcible and free from all affectation." Anatole France remarked that "London had that particular genius which perceives what is hidden from the common herd, and possessed a special knowledge enabling him to anticipate the future." More recently, Vil Bykov, comparing London favorably with Leo Tolstoy and Anton Chekhov, has observed that the "life-asserting force" in London's writings and particularly the portrayal of "the man of noble spirit" have "helped London to find his way to the heart of the Soviet reader." Among a number of contemporary European critics, London is considered "possibly the most powerful of all American writers."

London was, in fact, a writer of extraordinary vitality.

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