Editing Jack London (section)

== Beauty Ranch (1905–1916) ==
In 1905, London purchased a {{convert|1000|acre|km2}} ranch in [[Glen Ellen, California|Glen Ellen]], [[Sonoma County, California|Sonoma County]], California, on the eastern slope of [[Sonoma Mountain]].<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uuMtEHq3Nu8C&pg=PA102 |last=Stasz |first=Clarice |title=Jack London's Women |page=102 |publisher=University of Massachusetts Press |isbn=978-1625340658 |year=2013 |access-date=July 8, 2019}}</ref> He wrote: "Next to my wife, the ranch is the dearest thing in the world to me." He desperately wanted the ranch to become a successful business enterprise. Writing, always a commercial enterprise with London, now became even more a means to an end: "I write for no other purpose than to add to the beauty that now belongs to me. I write a book for no other reason than to add three or four hundred acres to my magnificent estate."

[[File:Portrait photograph of Jack London.jpg|right|thumb|London in 1914]]

Stasz writes that London "had taken fully to heart the vision, expressed in his [[Agrarianism|agrarian]] fiction, of the land as the closest earthly version of [[Garden of Eden|Eden]] ... he educated himself through the study of agricultural manuals and scientific tomes. He conceived of a system of ranching that today would be praised for its [[ecological wisdom]]."<ref name="American dreamers: Charmian and Jack London">{{cite book |last=Stasz |first=Clarice |title=American Dreamers: Charmian and Jack London |date=1 January 1988 |publisher=St. Martin's Press |isbn=0-312-021607 |page=250 |url=https://archive.org/details/americandreamers00stas/page/250/mode/2up |access-date=9 December 2023}}</ref> He was proud to own the first concrete [[silo]] in California. He hoped to adapt the wisdom of Asian [[sustainable agriculture]] to the United States. He hired both Italian and Chinese stonemasons, whose distinctly different styles are obvious.

The ranch was an economic failure. Sympathetic observers such as Stasz treat his projects as potentially feasible, and ascribe their failure to bad luck or to being ahead of their time. Unsympathetic historians such as [[Kevin Starr]] suggest that he was a bad manager, distracted by other concerns and impaired by his alcoholism. Starr notes that London was absent from his ranch about six months a year between 1910 and 1916 and says, "He liked the show of managerial power, but not grinding attention to detail .... London's workers laughed at his efforts to play big-time rancher [and considered] the operation a rich man's hobby."<ref>Starr, Kevin. [https://books.google.com/books?id=V9brMMe5PtIC&dq=London's%20workers%20laughed%20at%20his%20efforts%20to%20play%20big-time%20rancher%20%5Band%20considered%5D%20the%20operation%20a%20rich%20man's%20hobby&pg=PT293 ''Americans and the California Dream, 1850–1915'']. Oxford University, 1986.</ref>

London spent $80,000 (${{Formatnum:{{Inflation|US|80000|1905|r=-4}}}} in current value) to build a {{convert|15000|sqft|m2|adj=on}} stone mansion called [[Wolf House (Glen Ellen, California)|Wolf House]] on the property. Just as the mansion was nearing completion, two weeks before the Londons planned to move in, it was destroyed by fire.

London's last visit to Hawaii,<ref name="TherouxSpiritOfAloha">{{cite web |url=http://www.spiritofaloha.com/features/0307/writehawaii.html |title=They Came to Write in Hawai'i |author=Joseph Theroux |work=Spirit of Aloha ([[Aloha Airlines]]) March/April 2007 |quote=He said, "Life's not a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes playing a poor hand well." ...His last magazine piece was titled "My Hawaiian Aloha"<big>*</big> [and] his final, unfinished novel, ''Eyes of Asia,'' was set in Hawai'i. |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080121211749/http://www.spiritofaloha.com/features/0307/writehawaii.html |archive-date=January 21, 2008 }} ({{cite web |url=http://www.spiritofaloha.com/features/0307/aloha.html |title=My Hawaiian Aloha |author=Jack London |work=<big>*</big>From Stories of Hawai'i, Mutual Publishing, [[Honolulu]], 1916. Reprinted with permission in Spirit of Aloha, November/December 2006 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080121211719/http://www.spiritofaloha.com/features/0307/aloha.html |archive-date=January 21, 2008 }})</ref> beginning in December 1915, lasted eight months. He met with [[Duke Kahanamoku]], [[Jonah Kūhiō Kalaniana'ole|Prince Jonah Kūhiō Kalaniana'ole]], [[Liliuokalani|Queen Lili'uokalani]] and many others, before returning to his ranch in July 1916.{{sfn|Day|1996|pp=113–19}} He was suffering from [[Renal failure|kidney failure]], but he continued to work.

The ranch (abutting stone remnants of Wolf House) is now a [[National Historic Landmark]] and is protected in [[Jack London State Historic Park]].