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JACK LONDON Papers

The Huntington's archive of London's papers, numbering about 60,000 items, is the largest London collection in the world and also by far the largest literary archive of personal papers in the library (the next largest collection for an author contains about 8,000 pieces). Thus, the Huntington Library stands at the center of London scholarship, bringing scores of scholars into the research library each year.

The collection includes more than 1,000 drafts (sometimes multiple versions, in autograph and/or typescript) and notes for nearly all of London's writings. A notable exception is the autograph manuscript for The Call of the Wild, which London discarded after its first publication. Among the many exceptional literary items are the complete autograph manuscripts of Martin Eden and "To Build a Fire," and drafts of portions of Cherry, the incomplete, unpublished novel London was working on when he died. Also present is the manuscript of The Sea Wolf, a charred and congealed hunk tragically burned in the conflagration that followed the San Francisco earthquake of 1906.

The extensive correspondence files include London's revealing, affectionate letters to Cloudesley Johns, his early love letters to Charmian London, and many communications with his editors, especially George P. Brett of the Macmillan publishing company. A long series of letters from Jack's beloved step-sister Eliza London Shepard contains numerous details of running the Beauty Ranch, and correspondence between London and such other authors as Mary Austin, Upton Sinclair and George Sterling discuss literary and political matters. Other correspondence documents London's extensive interests and endeavors, including socialism, the ranch, the genesis of story ideas, films made from his books, advice and encouragement for young writers, and such enterprises as the cruise of the Snark and other trips and adventures.

A series of documents contains agreements, book contracts, and royalty statements. London's extensive subject file, retained in his own ordering and arrangement, holds hundreds of off-prints and clipped articles that he gathered on topics of interest, ranging from Alaska to yachts and, in between, such topics as copyright, dogs, fiction, gonorrhea, Jung, Molokai, plots, sea fiction, socialism, trade unionism, and woman. Also in the ephemera files are boxes filled with magazine printings of London's tales, comic books based on the stories, magazine ads incorporating images from London's works, and other items.

A superb set of more than a dozen enormous scrapbooks, attesting to the active life of Charmian's scissors and paste pot, contains thousands of news clippings about London and his works, abundantly documenting the extent to which the media-savvy author promoted himself and his writings in an age before the emergence of the cult of Madison Avenue advertising. Approximately 60 "broadsides" include posters, as well as oversize clippings, many covering his days as a war-correspondent in Korea in 1904. One of the most exciting sections of the collection contains about 10,000 photographs, including snapshots, high-quality inter-positives, and contact prints of images from the photograph albums, prepared for reference use and reproduction in order to protect and preserve the fragile albums. Finally, Jack London's personal library of several thousand volumes includes his annotations in some of the books that most influenced him.

Related collections in the Huntington Library include the papers of Joan London Miller, George Sterling, Anna Strunsky Walling, Franklin Dickerson Walker, Mary Austin, Joseph Noel, and Donald Barker.

History of the London Papers

The acquisition of the London archive began soon after London's death in 1916 and after retired businessman and collector Henry E. Huntington endowed in 1919 the research and cultural institution that would bear his name. In 1924, learning that London's widow Charmian sought an appropriate repository for his papers, and displaying impressive foresight concerning the lasting importance of the California author, Huntington dispatched his librarian Leslie Bliss to the Beauty Ranch to examine the papers. Receiving a favorable report, Huntington authorized the purchase of London's literary drafts, which soon arrived in the stacks and became but the first of a raft of further material that followed over the ensuing 75 years. Additions for the collection came to The Huntington by purchase and also by gift, due to the extraordinary generosity of Irving Shepard and the Irving Shepard Trust, and of his son I. Milo Shepard. Thanks to their selfless commitment to London scholarship, London's papers are preserved together and made available to scholars through the research library and to the general public via an exhibitions program. As recently as the mid-1980's, a gift of 130 original photograph albums ensured the preservation of these remarkable images, as historical artifacts and as resources for original research, and in early 2000, Milo Shepard donated a large set of files concerning the posthumous publication of London's books, of significant value for the study of the bibliographic and publishing history for the author.

This vast archive continues to grow, as The Huntington adds to it whenever possible. Highlights of new acquisitions in the last decade include a stunning, large-format, full-color theater exhibitor's book for The Call of the Wild, showing how the film was used to entice local businesses to advertise in the theater. Also acquired at auctions are a set of notes for the novel Adventure, to supplement the autograph manuscript of the novel already in the collection, and a characteristically vigorous letter by Jack London concerning the story "To Build a Fire" and emphasizing the veracity of certain details in the story to convince a doubting editor at the Youth's Companion. In late 1998, again at auction, the library placed the winning bid on a group of 56 letters from Charmian London to Harvey Taylor, dating from 1931-1932, augmenting a large series of similar letters already in the collection that deal with Taylor's friendship with Charmian and his efforts to act as her agent.

More recently, the Huntington has purchased two important groups of material, both from private collectors. In early 1999, the library acquired a stunning set of 14 autograph and typewritten letters, 1900-1906, from London to Charles Warren Stoddard, an early editor of the Overland Monthly and the man whose travel books inspired London's voyage on the Snark. Addressed to "Dad," the letters (which include the one quoted above) are unusually confiding in tone and reveal many details about London's personal life, including his doubts and fears but also his conviction of his own "right conduct" in separating from his first wife Bess, as well as his comments about the relationship of his first marriage to his collaboration with Anna Strunsky Walling on The Kempton-Wace Letters. The following year, the library purchased a fine group of 25 letters by Jack and Charmian, to various addressees. Six letters from Jack to Benjamin De Casseres deal with literary matters, and one especially interesting letter from the just-widowed Charmian to the same addressee, dated November 29, 1916, firmly disputes De Casseres' apparent assertion that Jack was now "star-roving" after death. Among this group is also a January 13, 1909, note from Jack to "Miss Goldstein," quoting his famous credo ("I would rather be ashes than dust . . .") and remarking that he had said it seven years before. This item is small but important in offering partial documentation for this London epigram of great popularity but elusive origin.

Vast though the London archive is, it does not contain everything, and The Huntington watches for opportunities to add to it whenever possible.