Newsboy, factory worker, sailor, gang member, oyster pirate, hobo, gold prospector, social crusader, war-correspondent, world adventurer, farmer, self-educated scholar, and literary giant. Jack London was all of these and more. From his birth, as an illegitimate child, the story takes us through his difficult childhood in the San Francisco Bay Area waterfront, his life as an oyster pirate, and his work for starvation wages. At 15, he rode the rails across the United States. At 20, he hiked the Chilcoot Pass to the gold fields in the Klondike. He covered the Russo-Japanese War and the Mexican Revolution. At the peak of his career, he was one of the best known socialists, and the best selling author in the world. Jack London is the closest thing this nation has to a literary folk hero. Alfred Kazin put it best when he said, The greatest story Jack London ever wrote was the story he lived. Here is that story.