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A small street named
for Jack London can be found on either side of South Park, a couple
of blocks from the author's birthplace on
Third Street near Brannan. The short life of Jack London, who died of uremic
poisoning at the age of 40 in 1916, was rich with adventure. The unwanted
son of a spiritualist medium was raised in Oakland by his mother and a financially
hapless stepfather. As a teenager, London lived on the edge on the Oakland
waterfront, raiding the bay's oyster beds and laboring in a cannery and
jute mill. Later, he sailed with a sealing crew off Japan and Siberia then
went on a vagabond's tour across America. He joined the gold rush to the
Klondike at 21. A veracious reader and writer whose stories were inspired
by his travels, prolific London was writing two books a year and scores
of articles in the late 1890s. America's first working class writer, London
was an avowed Socialist who reveled in his financial success, which he saw
as a victory over the Capitalists as the U.S. entered into a tumultuous
transition from laissez-faire to corporate capitalism. |