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Letter from Jack London to Charmian Kittredge '03

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Title: Autograph letter from Jack London to Charmian Kittredge
Author: London, Jack
Description: 104 lines, on rectos only of 5 sheets of plain paper, 10¾x8½, held together with a straight pin.One of the most interesting of the early love letters from Jack London to Charmian Kittredge, revealing some of the difficulties and uncertainties they faced, and how Jack was trying to overcome them. "…" Be blue if you wish, dear, but don't get scared. There is nothing to be scared about. It will all come sell, I know. As to the situation Auntie says B. [Bessie] is compelling, it will never be. You would have to be a different woman, though no less great a woman, for it to be. Not only would you & your love have to consent, but every fibre of you would have to consent
Heading: it would have to be a free and utter abandonment before I would accept. But all this is beside the mark. You are my wife by the highest sanctions, and my wife you shall be by the sanction of petty man-made law as well. So there's no more to be said. Remember, I want all of you, and can never be content with less. And you are so made that all of you could not be mine unless the transfer be socially legal. We will make it socially legal. What Aunty says about it being impossible to meet under cover of [???]'s or her house is quite right. We must take the whole responsibility or else not meet at all. On the other hand, I am confident we have not mutual friends whom we would care or dare to let in on our secret. Several things remain. The Hills, in good weather. A den of our own somewhere in San Francisco. And, paradoxical enough, the safest place of all, my own rooms. In this last instance, no one would know whom I had visiting mePlace Published: we would be utterly uninterrupted
Publisher: door bell would remain unanswered, etc. I am merely making any & all of these as suggestions. I want you to consider any or none of them as you deem best. For know this, Charmian, did you say we should not meet at all, I would accept"…"" Although at this state of there relationship the letters from Jack to Charmian were generally unsigned and no recipient named, he has uncharacteristically written Charmian's name in the body of the letter, and at the bottom of the last page, where a letter would usually be signed, a 1x3" piece has been cut out
Date Published: one can speculate that Jack could not resist signing the letter, and Charmian cut out the signature to protect him – or perhaps Jack signed it, then though better of it and cut out the signature himself. On the top left corner of the first sheet, Charmian has written in pencil, "Private."