Moon-Face

Jack London, born John Griffith Chaney, did not have an easy childhood.  The lack of ease started early.  His mother was embarrassed by his illegitimate conception, irritated that Jack's father left, and overwhelmed at Jack's birth.

London's parents lived in San Francisco where they plied their trades.  William Chaney was an astrologer.  Flora Wellman was a spiritualist.  She channeled the spirit of Black Hawk. This notable American Indian was born a century before as Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kis-kiak of the Thunder Clan.  He aligned himself with other Sauk Indians who were hostile to the settlers and wanted to return to the old ways.  Black Hawk became a leader of the Sauk and Fox Indians.

 It is unclear just how he presented his spirit through Jack London's mother.

Though from a wealthy family, Flora Wellman did not have an easy childhood herself.  She had various troubles.  One was an illness that left her physically deformed and perhaps mentally unbalanced.

Flora gave over the care of infant Jack to Virginia Prentiss, an ex-slave.  Mrs. Prentiss had just lost her own baby in childbirth.  She nursed Jack.  They remained strongly connected for life.  Through the Prentisses, Flora met John London.  He was a widowed veteran of the Civil War with many children of his own - several grown and one recently deceased  Eight months after Jack was born, Flora and John London married.  Their household included baby Jack and John London's youngest three children.  Flora drew on her training as a privileged young girl, and taught piano.

Everyone worked hard.  Jack shoveled coal, cut wood, and went to hunt seals in the Pacific.  As a teenager, London went to the Yukon to search for gold at Klondike.  He suffered a term in jail, pirated oysters, and rode trains.  In his spare time, he read.

The letters that Jack London wrote home convinced his mother he should be a writer.

He became one.  His colorful descriptions of the sea and the frozen north fascinated readers all over the world.  He wrote novels, short stories, essays, magazine articles and newspaper columns.  He was enormously popular in his (short) lifetime.  He used his influence to promote socialism and to speak about justice and beauty.

NOTE:  Moon-face is not his most famous novel, but the above pictured first edition recently found its way into riverrun.  It has that letter, featured in the earlier post, tucked in. 

links:

This Jack London World is a trove of information, photographs, writing and anecdotes.  The list of links to additional sources is a trove within a trove
http://www.jacklondons.net

Project Gutenberg's free online Call of the Wild
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/215/215-h/215-h.htm

It's fascinating to see these many images for Call of the Wild from google images.  Most of them are book covers but there are also cartoons and movie stills and sculpture.
the call of the wild

Black Hawk biography
http://www.historynet.com/black-hawk
also: http://www.blackhawkpark.org/History/Black_Hawk.html

google images of the Klondike Gold Rush

Davy Crockett's Wild Sports in the West - 1837

This almanac chronicles some of Davy's wildest adventures. Crockett grapples with mighty beasts and rushes, headlong, into peril.

The pamphlet was published in Nashville Tennessee, more than 150 years ago, by "the heirs of Col. Crockett". It is dramatically illustrated by an artist who relied on rumor and imagination a bit more heavily than on strict observation.

Giant elks romp in the West for hunters willing to risk elk-revenge. The pamphlet includes humble little contributions to the field of natural science: Elks "are fond of the great forests, where luxuriant vegetation affords them an abundant supply of buds and tender twigs; or of the great plains, where the solitude is seldom interrupted, and all bounteous nature spreads an

immense field of verdure for their support." But watch out! "When at bay, and especially if slightly wounded, he fights with great eagerness, as if resolved to be avenged."

Crockett describes childhood entanglements with the fearsome alligators that lived near his home, breathtaking dangers with wild boar, panthers, and bear. He can parry attacks by fierce animals with scarcely an uptick in heart beat, but the one beast he just can't stand comes from the damned north:

"Of all the cursed Adam varments in creation, keep me clear of a yankee pedler. They swarm the whole valley of the Mississippi, with their pewter watches and horn gun flints, peppermint drops and essences. Although the greatest chaps in creation for brag and sarce, they always play possum when there is danger; and skulk out the back door and over the fence in no time."

No skulker Davy Crockett. That's for sure. The almanac describes with admiration a noble

mastiff defending ladies from mountain cats, a brave farmer turned on by his bull gone berserk, a man from Ohio who, being pursued by a black snake, through cleverness and dexterity managed to get the snake to tie itself into a knot.

The almanac also includes important regional information for foreigners - about the American rifle for instance. "It admits the ball being sent home from the very muzzle by a mere wad; and is further peculiar in there being no kind of attention to balancing the length and weight of the barrel by the size and make of the stock. Practice alone will teach you to hold it with ease to yourself. There is a great deal more coquetry displayed in the use of the American rifle; and the nicety with which an object may be struck at 50 or 100 feet by a knowing hand is undoubtedly extraordinary."

There are also survival tips gleaned from far distant and remote bits of the globe, like India. Basic almanac information, like high tides and sunsets and various other astronomical calculations for the year 1837, is also included.

The illustrations and suspenseful narratives and useful tidbits are so intriguing that, despite its limited relevance to the 21st century, I am sorely tempted to reprint this pamphlet. In case I don't ever get around to it, I leave you with this account by Col. Crockett himself for your use in case you want to cross a dangerous river unmolested by various varmints.

"Of all the rivers on this airth, the Mississippi beats all holler. Many a tough time have I had in swimming across its turbid waters. I always rubbed myself thoroughly with skunk's grease before attempting to cross. By this means I kept the alligators and wild cats at a distance as they can't bear the smell of this crittur."

biographical outline

another account of Davy Crockett

His tombstone reads: "Davy Crockett, Pioneer, Patriot, Soldier, Trapper, Explorer, State Legislator, Congressman, Martyred at The Alamo. 1786 - 1836" more from American west

Lone Star Junction

a collection of facts about the Mississippi River

Horace Greeley - publisher - editor

Horace Greeley was a man of his century - the 19th. Westward expansion, slavery, American industrialization, reform and social idealism - these were the big issues of the times. These were Greeley's issues. He was for the first, against the second, watchful of the third, and a wholeheartedly active participant in the fourth and fifth.

Greeley came to NYC when he was 20 years old. He started several newspapers before he launched the enormously influential New York Tribune in 1841. The newspaper was his megaphone. His interests were far reaching and he had opinions to spare.

Greeley made a home for his family in Chappaqua. The town is bucolic still, 150 years later. Beautiful but apparently not a happy household for him. He called his home Castle Doleful and often stayed nights with his newspaper in the bustle of the city.

The country was young in Greeley's time. He and his New York Tribune helped to shape it.

biography from Tulane

breathtaking letter to Greeley from Lincoln - August 1862

biog of Greeley by Universalist/Unitarian

autograph album

Today, exactly 121 years ago, W.R. Rame inscribed this lovely pen and ink drawing in someone's autograph album.

Perhaps Rame was a young man and the autograph album owner was a young woman. I can imagine him laboring, absorbed, over this detailed sketch and her smiling as she watches him.