Jack London correspondence
Finding aid prepared by Gina C Giang.
Manuscripts Department
© 2016
The Huntington Library
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, California 91108
Phone: (626) 405-2203
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Email: reference@huntington.org
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Title: Jack London correspondence
Dates: 1902-1984
Collection Number: mssHM 82651-82695
Creator:
London, Jack, 1876-1916
Extent:
60 items in 2 boxes and 1 folder
Repository:
The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens
Manuscripts Department
The Huntington Library
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, California 91108
Phone: (626) 405-2203
Fax: (626) 449-5720
Email: reference@huntington.org
URL: http://www.huntington.org
Abstract: This collection consists of 45 letters, primarily from Jack London and his wife, Charmian London, and 15 pieces of ephemera.
Language of Material: The records are in English.
Collection is open to qualified researchers by prior application through the Reader Services Department. For more information,
please go to following
web site .
The Huntington Library does not require that researchers request permission to quote from or publish images of this material,
nor does it charge fees for such activities. The responsibility for identifying the copyright holder, if there is one, and
obtaining necessary permissions rests with the researcher.
HM 82651-82695, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.
Gift from Murray Smith in 2000 and 2010.
Jack London (1876-1916) was an American author best known for his fiction about California, Alaska, and the Pacific. His novel
The call of the wild is among the most internationally popular works by an American. An autodidact, he directed his thirst
for knowledge toward several passions, including sailing, ranching, and photography. He traveled widely, to Hawaii and throughout
the South Pacific, through California, Oregon, Nevada, to Korea during the Russo-Japanese war, Mexico during the Mexican Civil
War, and London, England, experiences which are reflected in his writing and his photographs.
This collection consists of 45 letters, primarily from Jack London and his wife, Charmian London, and 15 pieces of ephemera.
There are five letters from Jack London to a literary agent named, Daniel Murphy. These letters were written in 1902. There
are six letters to James M. Chandler written in 1905 and 1906. Chandler was to act as quarter-master and steward during a
proposed round-the-world cruise that was scheduled to last seven years with Jack London, Charmian London, an uncle, and a
Japanese servant. There is also a related newspaper clipping entitled: Jamaica Plain Man To Go On 7-Year Tour With Jack London
at the end of the collection. There are 16 letters to Benjamin De Cassares, an American journalist, critic, essayist, and
poet. In one letter dated November 3, 1912, Charmian tells of her "great disappointment-our second disappointment, and mainly
due to a poor physician in the first place" [her miscarriage]. She discusses Nietzsche's Zarathustra and what it has done
for her "...at a time of mental and physical collapse. Quite pulled me together-quite played the Bible, in fact." There are
three letters to Paul Eldridge, who seems to be a young fan of Jack London's. In answer to Eldridge's letters, Charmian has
given a wide range of comment pertaining to Jack's health and some of his writings. There is one letter to Perriton Maxwell,
where Jack states "I believe intensely in the pro-ally side of the war...As regards a few million terrible deaths, there is
not so much of the terrible about such a quantity of deaths as there is about the quantity of deaths that occur in peace times
in all countries in the world, and that has occurred in war times down the past" (August 28, 1916). There are 9 letters to
Hunter Kimbrough, Uptrain Sinclair's brother-in-law. Charmian's writing is somewhat flirtatious, as evident in a letter dated
March 15, 1928 "There—dearest Hunter!" By the time this is in your hands, I'll be in my own queer little house. I hope to
embrace you there thi summer, some time. DO come. I send you a kiss---falling downstairs meanwhile if you prefer!" There are
also letters to a "Mr. Hage", Vida Goldstein, S.T. Hughes, Bunster Creely and one telegram from Anna Walling Strunsky to Jack
London.
Arrangement
Arranged chronologically.
Chandler, James M.
De Casseres, Benjamin, 1873-1945
Kimbrough, Hunter
London, Charmian
London, Jack, 1876-1916
Murphy, Daniel
Ephemera
Letters (correspondence)
Box 1
Correspondence
Box 2
Ephemera