LONDON JACK: (1876-1916) American novelist, a pioneer of commercial fiction whose works included The

LONDON JACK: (1876-1916) American novelist, a pioneer of commercial fiction whose works included The

‘While I am certainly no disciple of Nietzsche, I am nevertheless compelled

to believe that at no time before the very present

has the Nietzschean thought been so vital and wide-reaching’

 

 

LONDON JACK: (1876-1916) American novelist, a pioneer of commercial fiction whose works included The Call of the Wild and White Fang, both set in the Klondike Gold Rush. A good T.L.S., Jack London, one page, 4to, Glen Ellen, Sonoma County, California, 28^th July 1909, to Dunbar. London states that his correspondent's letter has been forwarded by the Pacific Monthly and continues to comment, 'My blushes prevent me from stating in any detail my appreciation of all the good things you have to say about Martin Eden; but I've got to take a whack at you on the strength of your postscript. You say that Socialism, Nietzscheanism, and Agnosticism, are a bit passe. Now I can't agree with you worth a cent on that. While I am certainly no disciple of Nietzsche, I am nevertheless compelled to believe that at no time before the very present has the Nietzschean thought been so vital and wide-reaching. Agnosticism always has been and always will be. And as regards Socialism, from my understanding of it, it includes your Cosmism, Industrial Unionism, Materialistic Monism, and all the other Isms under the sun. You suggested, you know, that my attention should be called to the fact that Cosmism, Materialistic Monism and Industrial Unionism were the things that were being discussed by the thinkers nowadays. I don't know whether you have seen the chapter in Martin Eden where the “Real Dirt” discussed Materialistic Monism versus Idealism. Industrial Unionism has no place in the development of Martin Eden. He never belonged to a labor union in his life'. A letter of fine content relating to Martin Eden. Some age toning to the edges, otherwise VG

 

London's novel Martin Eden is about a young proletarian autodidact struggling to become a writer, and was first serialised in The Pacific Monthly magazine from September 1908 to September 1909 and then published in book form in September 1909. Eden represents writers' frustration with publishers and differs from London in rejecting socialism, attacking it as 'slave morality' and relying on Nietzschean individualism. Nevertheless, in the copy of the novel which he inscribed for Upton Sinclair, London wrote 'One of my motifs, in this book, was an attack on individualism (in the person of the hero). I must have bungled it, for not a single reviewer has discovered it'.