London, Jack (1876 – 1916)

Wildly popular American novelist (1876–1916) from the San Francisco Bay Area, best known as the author of adventure books such as Call of the Wild (1903) and White Fang (1907); also an early troubadour of surfing—or as London called it, the "royal sport for the natural kings of earth." As a teenager, London worked as a seal hunter in Siberia and as a gold miner in the Klondike; by the time he sold his first story, in 1899, he was an enthusiastic boxer, swimmer, fencer, high jumper, and cyclis...