Jack London, Glen Ellen, Sonoma County, California, to Max E. Feckler, 1914

Extent:

2 p.

Scope and content:

[London writes a letter full of literary advice and criticism to a beginning writer who has sent him a manuscript entitled A Journal of One Who is to Dieto review, "as a psychologist and as one who has been through the mill, I enjoyed your story for its psychology and point of view. Honestly and frankly, I did not enjoy it for its literary charm or value. In the first place, it has little literary value and practically no literary charm. Merely because you have got something to say that may be of interest to others does not free you from making all due effort to express that something in the best possible medium and form. Medium and form you have utterly neglected." London goes on to encourage Feckler to put in the proper amount of years into his apprenticeship as a writer, research the magazines to discover what stories are really marketable goods, and invites him to visit at his ranch in California]

Names:

Jack London
Max E. Feckler

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