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Wildly popular American novelist (1876–1916) from the San Francisco Bay Area, best known as the author of adventure books such as 

 (1907); also an early troubadour of surfing—or as London called it, the "royal sport for the natural kings of earth." As a teenager, London worked as a seal hunter in Siberia and as a gold miner in the Klondike; by the time he sold his first story, in 1899, he was an enthusiastic boxer, swimmer, fencer, high jumper, and cyclist.

London was a national literary hero in 1907 when he arrived in Honolulu, where he met surfing promoter Alexander Hume Ford on the beach at Waikiki; Ford quickly convinced the famous writer to give the sport a try. On his second day in the water, the 30-year-old London, managed to ride prone for some distance; he remained in the surf for four hours, but wasn't able to stand, and was bedridden the following day with a terrible sunburn.

London's 4,000-word account of his surfing experience, originally titled "Riding the South Sea Surf," was published in the 

 travelogue); it reads as a how-to guide, a primer on wave formation, and an ode to the surfer mystique. Waves are described as "bull-mouthed monsters," and Irish-Hawaiian surfing master George Freeth is a "sea-god, calm and superb . . . a brown Mercury." American writer Mark Twain, 40 years earlier, had also visited Hawaii, tried surfing, and written about the experience. But where Twain's account is short, humorous, and offhanded, London's is long, reverent, and awestruck.

Soon we were out in deep water where the big smokers came roaring in. [Just] facing them and paddling seaward over them and through them, was sport enough in itself. One had to have his wits about him, for it was a battle in which mighty blows were struck, on one side, and in which cunning was used on the other side—a struggle between insensate force and intelli- gence. I soon learned a bit. When a breaker curled over my head, for a swift instant I could see the light of day through its emerald body; then down would go my head, and I would clutch the board with all my strength. Then would come the blow, and to the on- looker on shore I would be blotted out. In reality the board and I have passed through the crest and emerged in the respite of the other side. I should not recommend those smashing blows to an invalid or delicate person. There is weight behind them, and the impact of the driven water is like a sand-blast.

London's account of surfing was widely read, and contributed to the sport's early growth. "Arguably," a biographer later wrote," Jack London's most enduring memorial was his successful transplanting of the sport of surfing from Waikiki to the West Coast of America."

London, Jack

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