I decided to do a little more research on Jack London's life. These words caught my attention ...

---
His life as a writer essentially began in 1893. That year he had weathered a harrowing sealing voyage, one in which a typhoon had nearly taken out London and his crew. The 17-year-old adventurer had made it home and regaled his mother with his tales of what had happened to him. When she saw an announcement in one of the local papers for a writing contest, she pushed her son to write down and submit his story.
Armed with just an eighth-grade education, London captured the $25 first prize, beating out college students from Berkeley and Stanford.
----

So he was born into a working class family in San Francisco. And since he had no money, he took jobs on sealing boats. And before his 18'th birthday, he almost died when the sealing boat where he was working as an apprentice was hit by a major typhoon and was almost lost at sea.

Now that is a story!