Denied a formal education, the boy compensated through voracious reading. He became a fixture at the public libraries, absorbing the advice of Horatio Alger and the adventures of great explorers.
By age 15, London had entered the world of the outlaw, staking out an existence by thieving oysters from the commercial beds around San Francisco Bay. His nautical career assumed legitimacy in 1893 when he joined the crew of a sealing vessel working in the north Pacific. Following a seven-month sea voyage, he returned to Oakland, but quickly embarked on a cross-country odyssey, initially as a member of Joseph Coxney's "Army" of unemployed men who were traveling to Washington in a quest for government assistance in the wake of the Panic of 1893. By the time this group reached Missouri, London was ready to travel alone and panhandled his way to Niagara, New York. These wanderings climaxed with his arrest for vagrancy in June 1894. After serving a 30-day sentence, he returned to California.
Such youthful experiences became the inspiration for literature. Several of London's short stories dealt with the world of the oyster pirates, and his tenure on the high seas later provided the foundation for The Sea Wolf (1904).
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