The title of Jack London’s 1913 book, Valley of the Moon, bestowed a lasting nickname to the Sonoma Valley, even though the Oakland-born writer had mistranslated a Native American word when coining the phrase. Nonetheless, there was no doubting London’s enthusiasm for the area when he bought 800 grassy acres of it – the site of what is now the Jack London State Historic Park – building an experimental farm and the 26-room Wolf House to house himself and his wife on what he named the Beauty Ranch.

Sadly, the farm and much of the Wolf House were destroyed by an arson attack shortly after completion, and London himself perished in 1916. Walking trails through the park reach the surprisingly substantial remains of the Wolf House, on what was London’s pioneering farm, and the modest cottage where he and his wife lived after the Wolf House’s destruction. The son of an itinerant astrologist, London was born in San Francisco in 1876 and his pre-author employment record includ­ed stints on the Oakland waterfront and prospecting for gold in Alaska. The destruction of the Wolf House (the full explanation is still a mystery) may have been a contributory factor to London’s death, thought to have been by suicide. London is buried in the park, too: his grave sited on a grassy knoll.

In the park’s House of Happy Walls, built by London’s widow, the writer’s eventful life is documented with collections of letters, page proofs, numerous first editions and translations, and paraphernalia from London’s socialist political campaigns in Oakland and his trav­els across the South Pacific.