A Daughter of the Snows (1902) is Jack London's first novel. Set in the Yukon, it tells the story of Frona Welse, "a Stanford graduate and physical Valkyrie" who takes to the trail after upsetting her wealthy father's community by her forthright manner and befriending the town's prostitute. She is also torn between loves for two suitors: Gregory St Vincent, a local man who turns out to be cowardly and treacherous; and Vance Corliss, a Yale-trained mining engineer. The novel is noteworthy for its strong and self-reliant heroine, one of many who would people his fiction. Her name echoes that of his mother, Flora Wellman, though her inspiration has also been said to include London's friend Anna Strunsky. It is also notable for a racist sensibility which is also detectable in some of his other work. Welse says at one point: "We are a race of doers and fighters, of globe-encirclers and zone-conquerors... All that the other races are not, the Anglo-Saxon, or Teuton if you please, is." Such sentiments were common currency in Jack London's time and he places them in the mouths of characters, not the narrator 1902. American writer (real name John Griffith London). London grew up in poverty, earning a living through various legal and illegal means. He was a sailor and took part in the Klondike gold rush. These experiences provided much of the material for his works and also made him a socialist. The Call of the Wild, the classic story of sled-dog Buck brought him instant celebrity and established his readership to this day. The story begins: All ready, Miss Welse, though I'm sorry we can't spare one of the steamer's boats. Frona Welse arose with alacrity and came to the first officer's side. We're so busy, he explained, and gold-rushers are such perishable freight, at least- I understand, she interrupted, and I, too, am behaving as though I were perishable. And I am sorry for the trouble I am giving you, but-but- She turned quickly and pointed to the shore. Do you see that big log-house? Between the clump of pins and the river? I was born there. John Griffith "Jack" London (born John Griffith Chaney, January 12, 1876 – November 22, 1916) was an American author, journalist, and social activist. He was a pioneer in the then-burgeoning world of commercial magazine fiction and was one of the first fiction writers to obtain worldwide celebrity and a large fortune from his fiction alone. He is best remembered as the author of White Fang and Call of the Wild, set in the Klondike Gold Rush, as well as the short stories "To Build a Fire", "An Odyssey of the North", and "Love of Life". He also wrote of the South Pacific in such stories as "The Pearls of Parlay" and "The Heathen", and of the San Francisco Bay area in The Sea Wolf. London was a passionate advocate of unionization, socialism, and the rights of workers and wrote several powerful works dealing with these topics such as his dystopian novel, The Iron Heel and his non-fiction exposé, The People of the Abyss.

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