Jack London was born in San Francisco in 1876. In his earlier years, he worked, among other occupations, as a fisherman, a journalist, and as a sailor. As part of the Gold Rush, London went to Alaska but returned from there penniless. These experiences greatly influenced his literary writing. Among his best-known works are the novels The Call of the Wind, The Sea-Wolf, White Fang and The Iron Heel, as well as the short story “To Build a Fire,” which was written and published in two different versions. His writing is known to have an influence on naturalism in literature and on the genre of science fiction. London died in 1916, at the age of forty.
