4 pages, on both sides of two sheets of plain notepaper 9¼x6, held together with straight pin.
Jack London writes to Charmian Kittredge, his future wife, while covering the Russo-Japanese War for the Hearst Syndicate. He is frustrated at not being allowed by the Japanese to go to the front, and also at the poor quality of writing he is sending for publication: “Dear Love, dear Love – Here I am, still in Seoul, assigned to the first column but not permitted to go to the front. None of the correspondents at front. All held back by Japanese, and in this matter we are being treated abominably… What if I have not written you every day, you, at least, have my miserable letters to the Examiner to read. Have never been so disgusted with anything I have done. Perfect rot I am turning out. It’s not war correspondence at all, and the Japs are not allowing us to see any war…” He also writes of his plans to return to the states after a year, and devises a scheme to meet with Charmian upon his arrival without arousing suspicion: “When I start for home I shall cable you [in Iowa, where Charmian was visiting]. Do you, on receipt of cable, (and if you wish to), - do you start for California. Thus, you will have been in California several weeks before I arrive, and as no one else will have the tip of my coming, why nobody will dream of connecting our returns…” (Charmian has written in the margin next to this passage, “I should have obeyed him.”) Unlike most letters Jack wrote to Charmian during this period, when he was still married to Bessie and his affair with Charmian was a secret, he signs his name in full, “for fear the Japs may otherwise not let it through.”