Frank Gelett Burgess was an American artist, art critic, poet, author and humorist. An important figure in the San Francisco Bay Area literary renaissance of the 1890s, particularly through his iconoclastic little magazine, The Lark, and association with The Crowd literary group. He is best known as a writer of nonsense verse, such as "The Purple Cow," and for introducing French modern art to the United States in an essay titled "The Wild Men of Paris." He was the illustrator of the Goops murals, in Coppa's restaurant, in the Montgomery Block and author of the popular Goops books. Burgess coined the term "blurb."
Circa 1910
1894 illustration of the fountain after the incident, from The San Francisco Call
The 1895 issue of The Lark in which Burgess's "Purple Cow" first appeared
The original "Purple Cow" from 1895
John Griffith Chaney, better known as Jack London, was an American novelist, journalist and activist. A pioneer of commercial fiction and American magazines, he was one of the first American authors to become an international celebrity and earn a large fortune from writing. He was also an innovator in the genre that would later become known as science fiction.
London in 1903
London at the age of nine with his dog Rollo, 1885
Jack London studying at Heinold's First and Last Chance in 1886
Heinold's First and Last Chance, "Jack London's Rendezvous"