LETTERS FROM JOAN LONDON

Tony Bubka, the fine Jack London scholar in Berkeley, wrote me a postcard on January 19, 1971: "Dale, Joan died last night at the Kaiser Hospital in Oakland. Her doctor said it best: 'Joan now is safe at sea.' "

The blow was not diminished by the fact that I saw it coming. Joan had written me in some detail about her cancer, first discovered by biopsy in mid-November, 1968. She wrote of the decision that there would be no surgery and of the long series of radioactive cobalt treatments she was undergoing. These were brave letters, containing no hint of self-pity; always warm, enthusiastic and hopeful. Occasionally there appeared in them a hint of quiet exasperation. She had launched into research on William Henry Chaney, Jack London's putative father (she hadn't the slightest doubt Chaney was Jack's father and her grandfather), and too she was working on a book about Jack London and his daughters. The cobalt treatments were making her ill and she could not get back to work. As she had told her doctors early in 1970: "I have a book to write and I want at least a year." They assured her, "You'll have that easily."

They came close.

Tony Bubka's note withered me as much as if some member of my own family had died. Yet, in fact, I was a Johnny-come-lately among Joan's circle of acquaintances and correspondents: I had spent two days with her in Seattle in November, 1966, and had a fairly regular exchange of letters with her until October, 1970. But to this day I cultivate the notion that I established some kind of extraordinary rapport with Joan London. It makes no difference that I am equally certain that everyone else who came into contact with her feels the same. She had a wonderful natural quality that way.

We did seem to hit it off when we met. The occasion was the 50th anniversary of Jack's death, November 22, 2023, and the commemorative meeting was held at the Suzzallo Library at the University of Washington and by Mr. and Mrs. George Tweney of Seattle. Tweney, an eminent London collector and bibliographer, put the meeting together, had a beautiful display of rare Jack London materials from his own collection on exhibit, had the programs printed, and was responsible for bringing Joan London there as guest of honor.

I had the good fortune to be invited by George Tweney to be his houseguest, along with Joan, for the November 21-23 period.

Joan made a charming and evocative speech at the meeting on the university campus the night of November 22, reading from Jack's letters to Cloudesley Johns — the young aspiring writer who wrote the first "fan letter" Jack ever received — and bringing her father to life to an engrossed audience of 150 people, all of whom sought her out afterward to express their delight at her portrayal of her father.

George Tweney and Joan London, Seattle, WA. Nov. 22, 1966

At George Tweney's home on Marineview Drive, logs crackling in the fireplace, good Napa Valley wines being sipped (Joan had bourbon and milk a concoction one does not forget), the talk continued into the early morning hours and although I can't speak for George beyond this (he knew her long before I did), it is safe to say we were completely captivated by Joan London. We picked each other's brains with equanimity — she was impressed with what we knew, felt and thought, as we were with her sensitive and thorough grasp of her father's life and work and her love for him and his memory. She had read everything and we had read everything and anything we couldn't pin down precisely, we fetched from George's magnificent collection.

I remember saying, at one point when we got into the almost obligatory discussion of which of Jack's stories we liked best, that I thought it inexplicable that "War" and "Like Argus of the Ancient Times" were not anthologized more often.

Joan leaned toward me with a genuine surprised smile: "I haven't heard those stories mentioned in years!

I knew a little about her life and career before I met her, of course: Jack and Bess Maddern's first child, born in 1901; graduate of the University of California at Berkeley (Phi Beta Kappa, 1921); a writer since the 1920's, active in California labor union work from the '30's (she began work, I learned later, as a writer for The Voice of the Federation, official organ of the Maritime Federation of the Pacific, and in 1941 became publications editor and research librarian for the California Labor Federation, retiring in 1962); married to writer Park Abbott, later to Charles Malamuth, foreign correspondent for United Press International (with whom she traveled to Russia in the '30's), and lastly to Charles L. Miller, who died of cancer only six months before Joan.

I knew her Jack London and His Times (1939) quite well, too, and took my copy to Seattle for her to inscribe. She wrote in it:

. . . he will remain significant to all who respond to his challenge: 'Be alive! Be positive! Take sides!' And to all who are striving to realize the social ideals whose enunciation was Jack London's most sincere and greatest achievement. Joan London — for Dale Walker, on a happy occasion. Seattle, November 22, 1966.

(And, in 1968, when the University of Washington Press reissued her biography of her father, she inscribed my copy: "For Dale Walker" The final sentences in the biography and in the introduction, written nearly thirty years later, explain why, today, a half-century after his death, he is being read by people all over the world, and why, more than ever, I am proud to be Jack London's daughter and his biographer. Remembering a wonderful weekend in Seattle, and good talk, and friendships that will endure . . . What incredible good fortune! Affectionately, Joan London, Pleasant Hill, July 24, 1968.")

We also talked at length about her interest in writing a book about her father, as a father to her and her sister Bess, and another on William Henry Chaney — a biography that would depict him as she was beginning to envision him: a pioneer astrologer and among the most important figures in the development of that "science" in America. She spoke of contacting Gavin Arthur, the San Francisco astrologer (and grandson of President Chester A. Arthur), perhaps to collaborate on the Chaney book. She expressed hope then — and later — that one day she would also write something on her beloved Honoré de Balzac.

Inevitably our conversation drifted to the other biographers of her father — Charmian London, Irving Stone, and Richard O'Connor. Joan had little use for any of them although she acknowledged the undeniable value of Charmian's detailed, letter-filled, two-volume effusion and agreed, somewhat sadly, that Stone's Sailor on Horseback was destined to continue to be THE popular book on her father.

The name Richard O'Connor struck sparks. I had debated to myself the timing of my comment to her that O'Connor and I were, at that very moment, completing a collaboration on a biography of John Reed, the Oregon-born radical, writer and war correspondent, author of Ten Days That Shook the World, buried (like "Big Bill" Haywood) in the Kremlin wall. Harcourt Brace & World was our publisher, the manuscript was due to them in another couple of months and was nearly complete. I casually threw this into the conversation at what I considered a good opening. It worked out fine. Joan, to begin with, reacted with her feelings about Reed: a hero of hers whose story (as told by what was then his only other biographer, Granville Hicks) always brought tears to her eyes. "How are you two going to handle it?" she asked, and beneath the question lurked her fear, I believe, that O'Connor and I were going to sensationalize Reed's story (a sensational enough story of its own, it has never required extra flourishes) and that we would not show enough respect and sensitivity to him and his martyrdom. I assured Joan that we were writing a fairly straight-forward account of his life and career, that what we wrote was being based on good research and that we hoped she would like the book.

There was not much else I could say for I felt certain she would, in fact, not like the book. For one thing, O'Connor and I were convinced, after reading everything we could find, that Reed was disillusioned with his communism at the end of his life and very likely would have thrown it off had he survived the typhus that killed him on October 17, 1920.

(Our viewpoint on this matter was given, to say the least, short shrift in 1975 when Robert A. Rosenstone's Romantic Revolutionary: A Biography of John Reed was published. In his bibliography, Rosenstone compared the O'Connor-Walker effort, The Lost Revolutionary, to Granville Hicks' earlier book and wrote: "Much less satisfactory is Richard O'Connor and Dale L. Walker . . . which exhibits slipshod research and the Cold War mentality of the authors who are obviously embarrassed by Reed's genuine radical commitments." Compared to Rosenstone's, our research was slipshod, but we were not embarrassed over Reed's radical "commitments" — we simply found ample evidence that these commitments were faltering seriously as he lay dying. In any event, Joan — to whom Reed was a hero — liked our book, as will be seen. From what I knew of her, she would not have hesitated to say otherwise if she had felt it.)

On the matter of Dick O'Connor's Jack London: A Biography, which Little, Brown, had published in 1964, Joan was explicit: She hated it and thought O'Connor's "proclivity for sensation" ruined it beyond repair. She remembered O'Connor fondly, she said, and had no ill feelings about him personally and felt he was handicapped in not being permitted access to the London holdings in the Huntington Library, "But I never had access to them either!" she said pointedly.

The following selections are from Joan London's letters to me between December, 1966, and October, 1970. I have excerpted what I believe are the most salient, interesting — and perhaps valuable — of her observations. It was no easy task to pry portions out of her letters. Joan London was a model epistolarian, her letters all publishable — thoughtful, intelligent, flawlessly written, revealing, probing.

It was an honor for me to receive each one and I have treasured all of them from the first I received, on December 3, 2023 from her Pleasant Hill, California, address:

     . . . I'll certainly keep in touch with you about the various projects I'd like to see underway before I do the Jack London and his daughters book. A couple of days ago I mailed a long letter to Gavin Arthur, the astrologer-grandson of President Chester Arthur whom I mentioned to you and George, on my proposal to reprint the Chaney writings in a small book, together with a foreword by me giving the London-Chaney connection and another, hopefully by Arthur, on Chaney's contribution to American astrology. I wonder what he'll say . . .
     While I think of it: if you ever get a chance to meet up with Eugene Nelson (the principal organizer of the farm workers in Texas, and author of Huelga, the story of the first few months of the Delano grape strike — a beautiful book), don't fail to go out of your way to see him. Tell him, of course, that I have urged you to do this, but it isn't really necessary. Just utter the magic name, Jack London. Gene idolizes Jack London.

On January 4, 1967, Joan wrote:

     . . .Gavin Arthur's response to my letter was enthusiastic. I spent all of an afternoon with him shortly before Christmas. He is proud to have been asked to write a foreword; Chaney has always been one of his "heroes"; and when Marc Edmund Jones (the "dean" of American astrologers) was visiting him a few years ago, they talked a long time about Chaney, the "father of modern American astrology," and, in his day, the only "genuine" astrologer in America, except for Dr. Luke Broughton, with whom Chaney studied his "idolized, sublime science." Arthur has written to Dr. (Ph.D.) Jones for suggestions about a publisher; Jones, it appears, has his own publishing firm, and it would be wonderful if he decided to publish the Chaney book . . .
     We have been having a miserably cold and dreary spell of winter days — frosted lawns and roofs almost every morning, the bird bath frozen over, so that the little birds skate around on it helplessly seeking water; gray fog that seldom lifts, sometimes briefly, thin, cold sunshine for a few afternoon hours, and a thermometer that moves between 28 and 45 at best. Rain is at least predicted for tonight, maybe, and almost certainly for tomorrow. It will not only be warmer then, but I like rain . . .
     Franklin Walker sent me an inscribed copy of his book on my father in Alaska. [1] I find it excellent! He makes wonderful use of materials which I, of course, have never seen. Do get it.

In the course of preparing an article on Jack for the journal published at the University of Texas at Arlington, American Literary Realism, 1870-1910 [2], I posed a few questions to Joan on the existing biographies of her father and on scholarly treatments she would like to see written. She covered these, and much more, in a long letter on January 26, 1967:

     None of the biographies remotely approach definitiveness . . . I hope some day soon an ultra-competent biographer will do the job. But what a task! A psychoanalytic study could not do it, but what enormous assistance it would be to that biographer! Balzac went without a definitive biography for more than a century after his death, and perhaps still does. The recent one by Andre Maurois has been acclaimed as definitive, but . . .
     I wish I had been permitted to see the letters, diaries, etc., in the Huntington Library and those still at the ranch during Charmian's lifetime, for actually, I am very hazy about details of my father's personal life. Franklin Walker's book is the fine job it is because he has seen all these materials. . .
     There is one book about Jack London I have longed for years to have someone write: a psychoanalytic study of that confused, confusing and contradictory man, Jack London, by a psychiatrist who can write. I thought about it again the other day when I read a brief review of Friendship and Fratricide by Meyer A. Zeligs, M. D. — an analysis of Whittaker Chambers and Alger Hiss — just published.
     And here is another idea: a critical study, probably. In my father's letters to Cloudesley Johns in 1899 and 1900, his plaint, "I cannot originate," recurs several times. Later, accusations of plagiarism against him were frequent. I ran a couple of them down — "Love of Life," for instance. In this story he had taken over, practically intact, not only the "story line" of the original article, but many of the details, and then wrote a magnificent story totally unlike the original. [4] Did he, I wonder, overemphasize the importance of "originality," or was his understanding of "originality" an impossibly strict one? Peculiarly his own? And did his unhappiness over what he felt was a serious lack in him contribute to his ultimate disgust with and even hatred of writing for a living, evident in later letters and interviews?
     . . . I think that perhaps he bought more plots than we know about, not only those from Sinclair Lewis and George Sterling. Oh, the poor guy, so frantically driven by the compulsion to make more and more money, to live on an ever more grandiose scale! If only he could have accepted his grinding poverty. Of course, for some time, Chaney also wanted very much to "get rich," but he soon realized that the principles he fought for got in the way, and the principles prevailed . . .

Joan's work on the life of William Henry Chaney continued forward and the more she learned, the more enthusiastic she became to write something about the Maine-born astrologer.

     Now about my foreword to the Chaney book: I want to fill out the portrait of Chaney as part of the 19th century protest movement on behalf of the "common man," placing him in the historical context in a little more detail than I could in the 2,000-word article. [5] In addition, I have some hope of finding new material in Chaney's writings which I have not yet seen — Astrological Definitions, published in 1872, Chaney's Annual and Chaney's Ephemeris, both published the same year as the Primer and The Astrologer's Vade Mecum, edited by Professor F. Lawson hall, published in 1902 — all in the Library of Congress and part of the Houdini Collection. All of these may, of course, be wholly devoted to astrology, but I'm counting on that Chaney autobiographical urge to erupt irrepressibly in these, as it did throughout the Primer. There are also several articles on the Northwest written by him in the 1880's (I haven't the reference handy), which appeared in a magazine published in Portland, Oregon. This may entail a trip to Portland, of course, if I can't arrange it by mail or xerox.
     Finally, there is the file of the magazine, Common Sense: A Journal of Live Ideas, which was published weekly in San Francisco from May 16, 2024 through June 5, 1875. Chaney wrote regularly for this magazine for most of its brief life. I have seen a few issues. Not all the articles were on astrology. I remember one in particular in which he set forth very modern ideas on prison reform. I understand there is a complete file in the Huntington Library; there are incomplete files in the San Francisco Public Library and the University of California Main Library; and I shall check the Sutro Library in San Francisco and the Bancroft at U.S.C.
     But I'm not even going to make a start on any of this until there's a firm commitment from somewhere. I promise to let you know, however, the minute something develops and I can start moving. . .
     A note from Tony Bubka yesterday, with a copy of Man's Magazine for February, 1967, containing another purely fictional, sensational stories about Jack London which have been appearing in such magazines from time to time during the past few years. This one is entitled "Before I Die, I'll Have 1,000 Women!", written by one Roger Weston — whoever he may be. I'm tempted to write (but probably won't) to Richard O'Connor and say: "Now do you understand why I deplored your emphasis on sex in your biography of Jack London?"

In my American Literary Realism piece I had used the word "footloose" to describe Chaney and Joan took light issue with it — Chaney was much on her mind. She also answered my question about when she had learned of Chaney to begin with, in a letter on March 16, 1967:

     A propos of Sailor on Horseback [6] and the Chaney paternity story which Stone revealed: I had known it since I was twelve years old — thanks to my father asking my mother to tell Bess and me about it. Even when Stone wrote his account, I knew a great deal more of the story than my father or mother, and certainly Stone, did . . .
     I am not happy, of course, about your adjective "footloose" in relation to Chaney, in the last paragraph on page 6. Despite its dictionary definition (free to go or travel about: not confined by responsibilities), this word has become a "value word," with an implication of irresponsibility. Chaney did spend several uninterrupted years in a number of cities; when he moved it was for definite reasons in pursuance of definite plans. In this, I am sure, he was like many Americans of his time, who sought more favorable environments for their hopes and ambitions in a period when the frontier was moving swiftly to the west and southwest, industry was growing by leaps and bounds, the status of Jefferson's "common man" was diminishing, the schism between the haves and have-nots was widening, and the rapid development of railroad lines made long journeys possible and not prohibitively expensive. Oh, how dearly I would love to do that work on Chaney you refer to — even though I am at best a good researcher and not a scholar! I'm going to make a stab at it, anyway, George [Tweney] sent me the xerox copies of Chaney's Primer a couple of weeks ago, and as soon as the farm worker book [7] is off my hands (please God, soon!), I shall dig into the Chaney story and background. At the very least, I hope, my account may inspire others to seek and find the dark places from which no information has yet turned up. Why, I wonder, am I so fond of that old curmudgeon!
     I am, of course, going to do the Jack London and his daughters book as well. Perhaps when I get a draft done, you might be good enough to read it; I shall value your opinion and suggestions.

The "farm worker book," written in collaboration with sociologist Henry Anderson, was entitled So Shall Ye Reap and was, in the words of one reviewer, "the culmination of Joan London's work as a warrior for labor." [8] The book is a history of California farm labor from the days of the first Indian workers through the 1913 Wheatland riots to the present-day activities of Cesar Chavez and his migrant workers.

On March 22, 1967, Joan continued her report on her Chaney work:

     It's okay about "footloose" Chaney. (I think I've become overly "protective" of him!) After I wrote you, upholding a "responsible" Chaney, I came across this in his Primer, written probably in 1889 or 1890: "I am a restless, unsettled person ever ready to move, and make changes." And a propos of having "long since given up politics and religion," he wrote, also in the Primer: ". . . now (I am) simply a detested astrologer, and wondering what I shall be at the next change." — Which certainly casts doubt on the permanence of his belief in and devotion to his "idolized, sublime science." I hope to explore this when I can.
     Right now, lacking data in the Primer, I am researching the period and the places where Chaney lived and worked, in hope of, not finding answers but the possibility of making fair guesses to such questions as: Why did he decide to study law? What drew him successively to the Whig, Democratic, and Native American (Know-Nothing) parties? It's exasperating but fun, nevertheless. All of these parties, as they developed with the changing times and/or reflected purely local sentiments, had some principles and policies in common. The trick is to find these and try to fit them to what little I know or can guess of Chaney's ideas and sentiments, which, like those of the political parties, changed and reflected local sentiments, and might very well have also been influenced by his early years in Maine and by his family's Revolutionary war and Shay's Rebellion traditions. Wish me luck!

Like Sherlock Holmes, Joan's facile mind bent to the task of making something of the Chaney material — the paucity of it being a hindrance but not an insurmountable one. She demonstrated a superb ability as a researcher (something never in doubt) with a keen deductive sense. On April 2, 1967, she wrote:

     My search for answers on Chaney has gone unexpectedly well — so far. I'm using something like free association at times, and always run down every hint I find in whatever I am checking out. A lot of this leads to dead ends, but there are some gratifying results.
     I have found out, for instance, the probable source of Chaney's first interest in astronomy. Do you remember that he was an excellent astronomer as well as mathematician? A zigzag course brought me finally to the great New England mathematician, Nathaniel Bowditch, whose New American Practical Navigator, published in 1802 (when he was 29 years old) and frequently revised thereafter, filled a desperate need. Van Wyck Brooks said that this book "saved countless lives and made American ships the swiftest that have ever sailed." It is credited with making possible the astounding achievements of the Yankee Clippers, and, amazingly, is still in use or has been until fairly recently.
     Chaney sailed on Yankee fishing boats, 1837-39. Given his hunger for knowledge, and his gift for mathematics, which must have manifested itself during whatever schooling he may have had while he was a rebellious bond-servant — it seems inescapable that Bowditch's book came into his hands when he began to sail, if not earlier. This Bowditch is a fascinating figure: the translator of Laplace's Celestial Mechanics; "a little, nimble man with burning eyes, with silky hair prematurely white, who darted about, rubbing his hands with excitement," he had found (before he wrote his book on navigation) 8,000 errors in the best English book on navigation; he was offered, and declined, a professorship of mathematics and astronomy at Harvard . . .Well, this was rewarding to say the least.
     I have also been able to find out why, probably, of course, Chaney's first political affiliation was with the Whigs, and am almost ready to trace his course from Whig to Democrat to Know-Nothing, or, as he preferred, Native American. The one thing that let me understand was the sudden realization of how young Chaney was, how unsophisticated, politically and otherwise, how uneducated he was — at the time — and how, inevitably, impressionable he must have been after most of his life on farms in Maine and three years of sailing.

Joan with her father Jack London, about 1904

In a break from her Chaney work, Joan had comments on Ambrose Bierce and a particularly joyous piece of news from Seattle in notes of April 13 and 17, 1967:

     I enjoyed reading Bierce's Tales of Soldiers and Civilians when I was in high school, as I remember, but have never had a desire to re-read him. When I was older I heard many reminiscences of him from George Sterling and Bierce's nephew and niece, Carlton and Laura Bierce, none of which I really remember, and none enhancing him. The one story by him that I admire and shall never forget is, of course, "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge." Equally amazing to me, however, are some of the people who have written biographies of him — Hartley Grattan, for example, and especially Carey McWilliams, of all people. (McWilliams as a Bierce biographer I have just recently learned from the section on Bierce in Edmund Wilson's Patriotic Gore, which, incidentally, I consider quite fine.) Why do these writers as Bierce biographers surprise me? I really don't know, except that I can't associate them, as I know them from their other works, with Bierce.
     This morning arrived an airmail letter from Don Ellegood, director of the University of Washington Press: "I am delighted to advise you that we want to reissue your biography of Jack London and His Times in our Americana Library edited by Professor Robert E. Burke . . . We plan to publish the book next spring, 1968. . ." I am to do a new Introduction. I cannot find words to tell you how happy I am about this. I shall be very grateful if you have any ideas you'd like to see in the introduction and will send them to me.

In a letter on September 27, 1967, Joan returned to news of her Chaney work:

     Perhaps the most interesting thing that has happened is the recent discovery by Tony Bubka — the Magician! — of a front-page story in the San Francisco Call of January 12, 1903, on the funeral in Chicago of W. H. Chaney. It is a wildly inaccurate story in details of Chaney himself, but a vivid description of the graveside ceremonies in the midst of a howling blizzard. (The story appeared on my father's twenty-seventh birthday, but he was abroad, very likely in England, and probably never saw it.) It must have been a wire story, and no one at the Call seems to have remembered the Chaney scandal that blazed in the San Francisco papers twenty-eight years earlier, when he left Flora and she attempted suicide, for it is not mentioned. However, the Chicago story has given me a second clue to a brand-new avenue of research on Chaney.
     In Chaney's introduction to his last book, The Astrologer's Vade Mecum, published in 1902, he wrote at some length about the close relationship between astrology and Free Masonry. Being vastly ignorant of both subjects, I was amazed by this, and resolved to follow it up. Then in the newspaper account of the plans Chaney had made for his funeral, I found this: ". . . the only things he asked were that one of his friends should wear the purple robe of the Essenes, one of the symbols of the Masonic order, of which he was a member. . ."
     I would certainly have brushed this aside as another of the reporter's inaccuracies if I had not seen Chaney's 1902 book. I now have xerox copies of four (including the Primer which George Tweney had copied for me) of Chaney's works, and have read a number of the articles he wrote in 1874-75 for the San Francisco magazine, Common Sense. As I remember there is no mention in any of these of Free Masonry, so he must have come to this in his last years.
     You can imagine that I am eager to run this down. There are two excellent Masonic libraries in San Francisco, and I shall start there as soon as the farm worker's book is out of my hands. What would we ever do without Tony Bubka!

When at last Harcourt Brace brought out our The Lost Revolutionary in November, 1967, Dick O'Connor and I inscribed a copy and sent it off to Joan. Her letter on November 25 remains as poignant to me today as it did when I first received it a decade ago:

     Last evening, close to tears, I finished reading The Lost Revolutionary, and an almost personal sense of loss lingers with me today in the midst of what must surely be one of the last golden Indian summers we shall have before the winter cold and rains begin. Stark and matter-of-fact as they are, I found the last three chapters so moving, conveying so perfectly the Reed I have loved and revered since I was a young girl, that I cannot bring myself to voice any of the critical comments that occurred to me from time to time as I read the earlier chapters. So we shall not disagree or argue in any way, you and I, about this book. Instead, let me congratulate you and O'Connor on writing an intensely interesting, eminently readable book that rises to a heartbreaking climax. At the risk of sounding pettish, although I'm sure you will not misunderstand, I want to add that this is a far finer biography than I expected it to be, and that I wish O'Connor's biography of my father had pleased me as much as this one.

As a Christmas gift I had sent Joan a copy of a reprinting of George Sterling's A Wine of Wizardry, done up in splendid style on special paper and binding by Pinion Press in Amsterdam, New York, and published in a limited edition in 1964. I had written the Introductory essay about Sterling ("Poet of the Mist") for the book and Joan responded, on January 4, 1968:

     I have just re-read your Introduction to A Wine of Wizardry and like it better even than the first time I read it. I am impelled to write you at once. Its restraint, I find, is its most remarkable quality, for implicit throughout, though never stated, is your admiration and affection for the poem, the poet, and the man. In so brief a space, you have managed to convey the very young man (and youth was indelibly a part of George, even when his hair was gray and his speech often edged with bitterness), overcome, no doubt, by the impact of San Francisco of the 1890's, and Bierce, and later the dedicated young man who must have worked unceasingly to become the poet he so desired to be, and finally, the barest glimpse at the end, of the disenchanted, aging faun he became.
     My memories of George, even after all these years, are vivid, and your Introduction echoes their essence. I saw him many times, I am sure, before Mother and Daddy separated, but the first clear memory dates from early in 1907, the second from a year later, in Carmel, and the third from the summer of 1909, on the day Daddy returned from the long voyage to the South Seas, Then there is a gap of many years — until about the beginning of 1925, when we found each other again and knew each other until the end. Some day, I hope, we can speak together of him.

The appearance of the University of Washington Press edition of her Jack London and His Times, and a comment from me about a re-reading of Martin Eden, generated this letter of July 2, 1968:

     I am eager to hear your comments on the Introduction to the new edition of my biography.
     I must tell you of a reaction to the biography of an old friend of mine, in Houston, whom I haven't heard from for a long time. During the labor struggles of the mid-30's he put together and became president of the Maritime Federation of the Gulf Coast, composed of shoreside and sea-going unions. In its few years of existence it managed to make gains for its members and all of us believed this man was on his way to becoming an outstanding, progressive, militant man in the labor movement. Then the war came, and when he returned from the South Pacific at the end of hostilities the world had changed, the labor movement had changed, and somehow he didn't find himself able to function as he once had.
     Recently, before going into a hospital for surgery, he went to the public library and got Jack London and His Times to re-read during his convalescence. "It was better than before!" he wrote me the other day. "Caused one of the old dead proletarian coals to glow feebly once again. So you see, 'tis always worthwhile fanning the fires of discontent . . . You have left your mark on the revolutionary cause." And he signed his letter, "Yours for a Workers' World."
     I am very proud of these words from him, and deeply touched . . . I must re-read Martin Eden again one of these days. About Brissenden [9]: it is generally understood that the model for Brissenden was Frank Strawn-Hamilton, Marxist, theoretician, sound Socialist, brilliant speaker, all of which Sterling never was. My mother remembered him well, as he was a frequent guest during the brief years of her marriage to my father. There are a number of references to Strawn-Hamilton in the volume of Jack London letters. [10] They remained friends over the years and he was often at the Glen Ellen ranch. My father admired him greatly but I have an impression that, especially in the early years, my father's feelings were mixed: perhaps this accounts for Brissenden's being somewhat "wooden." The last reference in the volume of letters is in a letter to Charmian, in 1912, in which he gently rebukes her apparently because she regarded Strawn-Hamilton as a "sponger."

My re-reading of Martin Eden and some comments on it spurred Joan to write a fascinating letter on August 10, 1968, of her own return to a beloved writer:

     Your re-reading of London parallels my own present re-reading, not of London, but of Balzac, my love since I was ten years old, and still first in my admiration, respect, and love. I knew I would start the re-reading sooner or later (this will be the fifth or sixth time), but a recent reading of the Andre Maurois biography of Balzac was so disappointing that I had to re-read the great Stephan Zweig biography of twenty years ago to get the bad taste out of my mouth, along with various shorter studies and all this triggered the return to The Human Comedy. Here is something interesting: My dad bought for his library the Grolier Press' 1890 edition of Balzac's works (which excluded Droll Stories and The Physiology of Marriage), with the George Saintsbury introductions to each volume. Apparently, Balzac did not interest my dad, for when the division of community property was made by my mother and dad at the time of their divorce, Balzac went to my mother. She didn't like Balzac either, so the set stayed, unread, on the library shelf until I discovered it. Years later my mother gave me the set, which I treasure.
     The interesting point is, of course, that my dad found Balzac uninteresting. Or could it have been the 19th century Victorianism that crippled all love episodes in his own works that made him draw back from Balzac's lusty attitude toward love and sex? This is more than possible. I feel certain that he did not know that both Marx and Engels had gratefully acknowledged their enormous debt to Balzac.
     Although no two writers were less alike than Balzac and London, and Balzac is immeasurably the greater, there are interesting parallels in their lives, works and characters. Both struggled in grinding poverty to achieve success, although my dad's struggle was very brief compared to Balzac's full decade of writing the 1820's equivalent of "pulp" stuff. Both wanted to make money, both tried to accomplish this through business ventures, both failed ignominiously at business. Both wanted to, and did, write for the stage. London had no success at all; Balzac's one success came after his death. Both were torn between hatred and compassion for their mothers. Both died too young, with much writing planned ahead, my father at 40, Balzac at 50 — both with health destroyed by the way they had lived and overworked. There are many other examples, but nothing there, really, for a study — unless some Ph.D. candidate were hard up for a dissertation subject!

My mention of "All Gold Canyon" (published by Century Magazine in November, 1905), from a re-reading of it, generated this comment in the same letter:

     It is another of my top favorites. Reading it is like listening to wonderful music, looking at superb paintings — until the intruder shatters the mood, which, incredibly, is re-established at the end. Many years ago when I was lecturing under the auspices of the U. S. Extension Division, I read this story to an audience of mining men at a mining company near Grass Valley in Northern California. All of them had panned gold at one time or another, and they were flabbergasted by the description of goldpanning in the story. "That's just the way to do it!" they said, shaking their heads incredulously.

And, responding to a question about George Orwell's indebtedness to Jack London's The Iron Heel (1908), she wrote:

     I, too, have felt that Orwell read The Iron Heel before writing 1984, although We by Evgen Zamyatin (whom I knew well in Russia in 1931) is the acknowledged main inspiration. And in connection with this book, I agree with your earlier disagreement with the dismissal of Jack London as neither a great writer nor a great man. Certainly, London wrote much that is deservedly forgotten, but the great stories and novels are great and will not be soon forgotten. Some, long overlooked, are going to be rediscovered. I think now of one of the truly great short stories, rarely reprinted, "The Mexican." Imagine putting a revolution and a prize fighter together in one story that is so compelling that you can't put it aside until you've finished reading it! For me, The Iron Heel is the greatest. How unerringly London chose Chicago for the first great revolt. And in three weeks the Democrats will be meeting here — in the long, hot summer of this mad year! The critique of The Iron Heel in my biography was written especially for me by Leon Trotsky. Note how he stressed the foreseeing of the coming of fascism decades before it did arrive.

From the beginning of 1969 until the last letter I received from her, Joan's final illness began to intrude. Her reports on the biopsy, the lingering effects of the radiation treatment, and the recurrence of a migratory form of arthritis, were purely clinical, however. She did not complain except in that the illnesses kept her from her work. On January 31, 1969, she wrote me:

     Surgery recovery has been excellent, although slow . . . All of this explains why I have not written. I am working daily tightening the farm worker's book. Tony Bubka, whose collection of poems by and about Jack London has grown large and wonderful, is tremendously interested in the Robert W. Service poem, "J.L. and R.D.," which you mentioned and of which he knew nothing. [11] Will you be good enough to send me a xerox of the poem and title, author, publisher, year of publication, page no., etc., all the things that a meticulous researcher like Tony yearns to have?
     The New York Times has become aware of the growing interest in London, and telephoned the head of its S. F. Bureau to get an interview with me — which took place a couple of days ago.

It was in a letter dated February 14, 1970, that Joan wrote of her conversation with her doctors in which she said "I have a book to write and I want at least a year." They assured her, she said, "You'll have that easily." She continued:

     Well, I hope to God they're right . . .
     I researched the life and times of W. H. Chaney (1821-1902) and wrote a biographical study of him that runs to some 90 typed pages, and which I'm still rather pleased with. It is biographical and historical. Gavin Arthur will do the astrological section, and Jones will probably write an introduction.
     I do hope this project succeeds in being published. [12] It seems the perfect time to do so, with frightened Americans and others turning to astrology by the thousands. And a book co-authored by Gavin Arthur, famous astrologer and grandson of Chester, and Joan London, daughter of Jack London and granddaughter of W. H. Chaney, with an Introduction by the "Dean" of American astrology, certainly ought to make a little stir.

On March 12, 1970, a brief note from Joan:

     I feel pretty well, and am impatient to get my energy back, the loss of which was the result of a badly swollen throat caused by the radiation treatments . . .

And again on April 4:

     The radiation doctor is thoroughly pleased with me and the way the radiation seems to be clearing away the carcinoma cells. I shall see him again in May. Meantime, I recover slowly but surely from the effects of the treatment.

And, on August 28:

     My husband passed away two weeks ago — carcinoma of the pancreas. Pain only at the end, but he was in the hospital and the hypos were handy.

The last letter I received from Joan London was dated October 8, 2023 — three and a half months before her death. It was the newsy, hopeful, impatient Joan again, planning ahead, never looking back:

     I am still in Pleasant Hill, still cussing the rheumatoid arthritis that is so reluctant to leave me. I'm selling my home, which breaks my heart, for I love it so, but it's too big for me to take care of. Will go about it fairly slowly for I'm looking for something not easy to find out here (dry climate has made the decision to stay here). I want a cottage — four rooms, no garage, small garden — near center of town (Walnut Creek) where Kaiser Hospital is, low rent, of course, or low sales price. It will take time.
     The doctor says I'm making progress with the arthritis . . . I have the painful kind, of course! And it's called "migratory" because it moves around.
     Farm worker book will be out January 15, 2024 — safely after Christmas, thank goodness, and celebrating my birthday! As soon as I can get moved, I won't wait to get "settled down" but will get to work on the J. London and daughters book at once.
     Letter from Vil Bykov a couple of days ago. London is booming in the Soviet Union — 12 volumes on the way in Ukranian for the first time, 35,000 copies of each volume. Call of the Wild will be published in English for the first time over there. Bykov's first book on London (1962) is to be reissued, etc.
     My hand says "No more writing!" so I must stop. Did I tell you that you must come out during Xmas holidays because Earle Labor is planning to come then too?
     My love, dear Dale.

When our The Fiction of Jack London was published in 1972, Jim Sisson of Berkeley and I dedicated the book to Joan. She knew of our work on it and was anxious to see it published. We kept the dedication simple but both of us felt our long-standing debt to her:

For myself, I cannot express my feelings about Joan London better than has been written already by Jim Sisson: