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##### November 23, 1916 OBITUARY ## Jack London Dies Suddenly On Ranch ##### By THE NEW YORK TIMES SANTA ROSA, Cal. Nov. 22.--Jack London, the author, died at his Glen Ellen, Cal., ranch near here at 7:45 o'clock tonight, a victim of uremic poisoning. London was taken ill last night and was found unconscious early today by a servant who went to his room to awaken him. His sister, Mrs. Eliza Shepard, summoned physicians from this city. It was at first believed that the author was a victim of ptomaine poisoning, but later it developed he was suffering from a servere form of uremia. Dr. J. Wilson Shiels of San Francisco, a close friend of the writer, was summoned during the day. From the time London was found this morning he did not regain consciousness. About midday he seemed to rally, but later suffered a relapse and sank rapidly until the end came. Besides his sister, Mrs. Shepard, London is survived by a daughter, who is a student at the University of California; his mother, who lives in Oakland, Cal., and his widow, Charmion London. Mrs. London was with her husband when death came. Mr. and Mrs. London recently returned from a sojourn of several months in the Hawaiian Islands, and have been living in their Glen Ellen ranch, one of the most elaborately equipped in Northern California. Jack London was born in San Francisco on Jan. 12, 1876. He was the son of John London, a frontiersman, scout, and trapper, who had come to San Francisco in 1873. His early life was spent on California ranches up to the age of nine years, when the family removed to Oakland, Cal. Since his ninth year, with the exception of intermittent periods at school, his life was one of toil, which has been vividly presented to the readers of his work, for practically all of his novels and short stories have a background taken from his own life. His experiences in youth as an oysterman and bayman, his long voyage on a sealing schooner along the coast north of the Russian side of the Bering Sea, his many short voyages, his year of following the life of a tramp bent on acquiring experience and investigating social and economic conditions, have all been brilliantly built into his may works of fiction. How He Started as a Writer. He gave the following account in an interview of how he got his start as a writer: "In my fitful school days I had written the usual compositions, which had been praised in the usual way, and while working in the jute mills I still made an occasional try. The factory occupied thirteen hours of my day, and being young and husky, I wanted a little for myself, so there was not much left for composition. The San Francisco Call offered a prize for a descriptive article. My mother urged me to try for it, and I did, taking for my subject, 'Typhoon Off the Coast of China.' "Very tired and sleepy and knowing I had to be up at 5:30, I began the article at midnight and worked straight on until I had written 2,000 words, the limit of the article, but with my idea only half worked out. I continued adding another 2,000 words before I had finished, and the third night I spent in cutting out the excess, so as to bring the article within the conditions of the contest. The first prize came to me, and my success seriously turned my thoughts to writing, but my blood was still too hot for a settled routine." At 19 years London entered the University of California, but half way through his freshman year he had to quit for lack of money or means to support himself. He went to work in a laundry, writing in all his spare time. Seeks Gold in the Klondike. London gave up work in the laundry to go to the Klondike during the gold rush there in 1897. He was one of the few who made it in the Winter of that year over Chilcoot Pass. After a year of unsuccessful gold seeking he fell a victim of the scurvy. Unable to get a homebound steamer, he and two camp mates embarked in an open boat for the Bering sea. It was immediately upon his return to San Francisco that he began to turn out literature. More than once in his books London insisted that he gained his literary equipment through his hard life. His Alaskan experiences were reflected in his earlier works. He leaped into fame as one of the foremost young American authors with "The Call of the Wild," published in 1903. In 1904 and 1905, after the series of Alaskan stories had given him great fame and founded the school of writers who for some years after placed their stories in an arctic setting. London went to Korea as a war correspondent. After his return he settled down to produce fiction in amazing volume, interrupting this only for a number of picturesque cruises. In recent years he and Mrs. London had lived a large part of the time at Hawaii. His Novels. London was the author of the following: "The Son of the Wolf," 1900; "The God of His Fathers," 1901; "A Daughter of the Snows," 1902; "The Children of the Frost," "The Cruise of the Dazzler," "The Faith of Men," "The Sea Wolf," "The Game," "War of the Classes," "Tales of the Fish-Patrol," "Moon Face," "White Fang," "Before Adam," "Love of Life," "Martin Eden," "The Iron Hell," "The Road," "Lost Face," "Revolution," "Burning Daylight," "Theft," "When God Laughs," "Adventure," "The Cruise of the Snark," "Smoke Bellew," "Night-Born," "The Abysmal Brute," "The Valley of the Moon," and "A Son of the Son."
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