Jack London (January 12, 1876 – November 22, 1916) was an American author who wrote The Call of the Wild, White Fang, and The Sea Wolf along with many other popular books. A pioneer in the then-burgeoning world of commercial magazine fiction, he was one of the first Americans to make a lucrative career exclusively from writing.
London's mother, Flora Wellman, a music teacher and spiritualist who claimed to channel the spirit of an Indian chief, b...
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Jack London (January 12, 1876 – November 22, 1916) was an American author who wrote The Call of the Wild, White Fang, and The Sea Wolf along with many other popular books. A pioneer in the then-burgeoning world of commercial magazine fiction, he was one of the first Americans to make a lucrative career exclusively from writing.
London's mother, Flora Wellman, a music teacher and spiritualist who claimed to channel the spirit of an Indian chief, became pregnant, presumably from her union with William Chaney, an astrologer she lived with in San Francisco. According to Flora Wellman's account as recorded in the San Francisco Chronicle of June 4, 1875, Chaney demanded that she have an abortion, and when she refused, he disclaimed responsibility for the child. In desperation, she shot herself. She was not seriously wounded, but she was temporarily deranged. After she gave birth, Flora turned the baby over to ex-slave Virginia Prentiss, who would remain a major maternal figure throughout...
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