10 pages, in ink. 28x21.5 cm. (11x8½”), held together with a straight pin.
Long letter from Jack London to his future wife Charmian Kittredge, discussing their burgeoning relationship (they had been together a little over two months), mutual friends and acquaintances, Jack’s wife Bessie, and more. Jack begins the letter expressing both joy and anguish, with “the knowledge that I could see you with the gang to-day, and the less pleasant knowledge that I must sit here & drudge the livelong day.” He then requests that Charmian “please read the Colfus letter in your most psychological mood…” He then switches to discussing Bessie, “Poor B! She has no conception of loyalty whatever! Nor of fair play. Unfeminine in many things, she does not counterbalance by being masculine in some of the good masculine qualities. Fresh from telling Aunt Villa (and everybody else, I suppose) things which she should not tell anyone, and things which she could not tell fairly as they really are – fresh from all this, & from telling her brother Will, she comes to me begging me not to tell him certain things about herself. As though I would have told!... I am glad you know so thoroughly why I go to see her so often, and to kiss her so lingeringly and passionately. Dear little Joan! And dear Charmian for your good-woman’s heart!...” He then turns his attention to Charmian, “Ah, dear heart, my love for woman does begin with you and will end with you. The other women— ‘Wife, they was only women,’ No one of all of them was my woman. I do not know how much you understand the man side of such things, but I think you understand it well, as well as any woman can. And still, you cannot understand it all. Man can pursue his lusts, without love, simply because he is so made...” After much more in this vein and others, he concludes the letter, “I was willing to give more because I wanted more, I willingly gave, until I said, ‘I love you, Charmian, and I want you for my wife.” The bottom one inch of the final page is clipped off. Perhaps Jack unwittingly signed the letter, then thought better of it. The two were still hiding their relationship since Jack was still married to Bess, though Jack’s mention of Charmian’s name was fraught with danger.