Jack London (1876-1916)

Known for his four-legged protagonists, Jack London had an adventurous and restless life, which led him to travel the world and adopt a vagabond lifestyle. The leitmotif of his novels is the relationship between man and nature, in particular, man's ability to travel and adapt to inhospitable environments, such as the icy Alaska. The Call of the Wild (1903), considered his masterpiece, is in fact inspired by the adventures and misadventures of his journey to the Klondike in north-western Canada to join the 'gold rush'.