Author Biography
Jack London was born in San Francisco in 1876. He grew up during hard times, and he was not well off by any means. He was one of the first Americans to establish a career in writing.
Jack had a rough childhood filled with escaping poverty, and working long hours to help his family survive. Because of his rough childhood, he had strong socialist political views, and he had a strong desire to gain enough knowledge to become successful at something in order to escape poverty. Many of his writings involved incidents that he had been involved in himself, and he even wrote about his struggle to become a writer. (Hartzell) When Jack wrote “Surfing: The Royal Sport” the sport was only known about by a small segment of the population. All of the things that Hawaii had to offer were also still unknown to the rest of the world population. During this visit to the islands, Jack became friends with Alexander Hume Ford, who taught him how to surf. He loved it very much, and became proficient in surfing within a day, but the Hawaiian sun got the best of him. Jack had very severe sunburn by the end of the day, and a local doctor told him that it was the worst case he had ever seen. The partnership between Jack London, George Freeth, and Alexander Hume Ford brought surfing to the mainland. Jack wrote about surfing, Freeth exhibited his surfing skills to huge crowds, and Ford went around promoting surfing, and raising funds. (Kingman)
Jack was recently married during this time, and his wife also wrote books that involved their experiences in Hawaii. A few years after “Surfing: The Royal Sport” was written, Jack’s health began to deteriorate. On November 22, 1916, Jack died of renal failure at his ranch. (Stasz)
Jack’s writings live on all over the world. Many of his writings were translated into other languages, and his stories are still read on a worldwide scale. (Hartzell)