Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 281, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 November 1916 — Jack London, Famed Fiction Writer, Is Dead. [ARTICLE]

Jack London, Famed Fiction Writer, Is Dead.

Jack London, famed fiction author, died at his Glenn Ellen, Cal., ranch, near Santa Rosa, Cal., Wednesday night, a victim of uremic poisoning. London was taken ill on Tuesday nignt and found unconscious by a servant who went to his room to awaken him. Physicians were called, who at first thought he was suffering from ptomaine poisoning, but it later developed that uremia was the cause of his condition. From the timte London was found he never regained consciousness. After midday he seemed to rally, but later suffered a relapse and sank rapidly until the end came. Mr. London would have been 41 years of age on January 2, and is survived by his wife, mother, one daughter and a sister. Jack London, novelist, socialist reformer and amthropologist, began his tempestuous career in San Francisco. He was the son of John London. His parents were very poor and he ran the streets, and at the age of fifteen he spent his pennies for beer instead of candy because he thought it more manly. He became a strong prohibition mover in later life.

The strangeness of his boyhood is seen in his statement that he had no recollection of being taught to read and write, although he could do both at five years of age. At eight he was a ranch boy working long hours. He read Washington Irving’s Alhambra about this time and was disgusted because the cowboys could not be persuaded to become interested also. He gloated over dime novels, stole newspapers. At eleven he was in Oakland, reading so much that he developed a nervous disorder for lack of exercise.

Then a great spirit of adventure came over him. He became an oyster pirate and shipped as a sailor on a schooner and was later a salmon fisher. Turning from a fish pirate to fish patrolman he had many a wild adventure in those lawless waters. Limited space prevents us from printing more of the life of Jack London, but it is safe to say that no one had a more interesting life to read about than this famous author and anyone in search of interesting reading material should secure a book on his life. His best known books are: “The Son of the Wolf,” “The God of His Father,” “A Daughter of the Snows,” “The Children of the Frost,” “The People of the Abyss,” “KemptonWace Letters,” “The Call of the Wild,” “The Faith of Man,”” “The Abyssmal Brute and John Barleycorn,” besides a great many others too numerous to mention.