Early in 1900, London married Bessie Maddern and began his career as a serious writer. He soon finished his first novel, A Daughter of the Snows, which was published in 1902, and in the summer of 1903, London met Charmian Kittredge, whom he promptly fell in love with and abruptly left his wife and two daughters for.
In ill health most of his life, by 1915, London was almost lame. His bowels gave him continual pain, and in order to reduce the pain, London began using opium and morphine, and it was not long before he became addicted to the drugs. As a consequence, his kidneys were also eventually wrecked by his misuse of all of the drugs, and London refused to even quit smoking, although he had cancer of the throat. By November 21,1916, London was in such poor health that he spent the entire day in bed. Then shortly before dawn the next day, he injected himself with what would prove to be an overdose of drugs. That evening, he died; he was forty years old. There is, naturally, some question as to whether his death was an intentional suicide.
