Jack London was born in San Francisco, California, on January 12, 1876. Raised in poverty, he educated himself through reading; .he especially enjoyed the stories of Washington Irving and Rudyard Kipling. London spent his teen-age years sailing to Japan aboard a sealing schooner, tramping across the country as a hobo, and working at various odd jobs. London later drew upon these early adventures for such books as The Cruise of the Dazzler (1902) and The Sea-Wolf (1904).

When he was twenty, London enrolled in the University of California at Berkeley. He had just begun to read Charles Darwin's Origin of Species and Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto. The ideas of Darwin and Marx profoundly influenced London's thinking and writing. The following year, 1897, London left California for the Klondike gold rush.

He did not "strike it rich" there, but he did bring back many experiences and tales of the North...