The other London: In appreciation of Charmian
By Jonathan Farrell —
When taking a walk around the grounds at Jack London State Historic Park in Glen Ellen it’s easy to be awestruck by the natural beauty of what was once the famous author’s home. Yet what few people know is that behind London and his vision was his wife, Charmian Kittredge London.
“She was instrumental not only in ensuring his legacy but also in helping and contributing to his writing,” said poet/historian Iris Jamal Dunkle.
Dunkle’s recent book, Charmian Kittredge London, Trailblazer, Author, Adventurer, speaks of a woman who was of her time and yet ahead of the times. “Charmian refused to adhere to the gender norms of her day,” Dunkle said.
Dunkle’s work inspired the officials and staff at JLSP to shift the spotlight from exclusively Jack London to highlight Charmian as one of the 20th Century’s most under-appreciated women, one of significant influence and accomplishment.
“I had never even met a writer until the day I walked into the museum at the House of Happy Walls at Jack London State Historic Park, back in the sixth grade,” Dunkle told The Sun. “Suddenly, walking through the exhibits, I saw how one could spend a life traveling the world and writing about it.”
She fell instantly in love with Jack London and vowed to read everything he had ever written.
Dunkle was impressed by London’s insightful writing and his way of capturing the essence of people and perspectives. She vividly recalls when she came upon a collection called, Our Valley of the Moon in poems and pictures, which included an iconic photograph of Jack London riding horseback on Sonoma Mountain. “And to my surprise, beneath it was a clear attribution,” said Dunkle. “Charmian London.”
Intrigued, Dunkle dug deeper. “When I reached out to several scholars to see if they knew Charmian had been the photographer, each of them gave me the same answer: they had never even thought to ask who had taken this famous photograph!”
In her six-year endeavor of research for the nearly-300 page biography, Dunkle was both surprised and dismayed at what she uncovered. “From far away, London was an individual genius writer. But up close, the ugly truth. The brushstrokes that made that illusion so beautiful from afar are fully visible.”
What was clear to Dunkle was the influence and effect of Charmian. “Each adventure London sought and experienced, each book he wrote was aided by another force of nature: his second wife, Charmian Kittredge London.”She was a rarity among the women of her time in that she was college educated. “Not a finishing school or a ladies seminary,” said Dunkle, “but a progressive college for women, Mills College in Oakland.”
Despite the fact that Charmian lost her mother when she was little, her father insisted she be educated, learn skills and be self-sufficient. Learning stenography, Charmian worked her way through school in the Mills College administration offices. She became extremely efficient and invaluable, Dunkle said.
The most unsettling aspect to Dunkle’s lengthy research was the fact that, “Charmian was maligned by London scholars and biographers like Irving Stone, who painted Charmian as someone who was an overbearing disruption than a helper.”
Far from it, Dunkle found. Her research revealed a remarkable woman who traveled the world, and had a high-paying job. Charmian worked at the largest shipping firm in San Francisco before she met Jack in 1900 and started dating him in 1902.
Upcoming fundraiser: “Charmian’s Spring Fling”, Sunday, April 23
Also often disregarded is the fact that Charmian began her own writing career in the 1890s, publishing non-fiction essays in Sunset magazine and The Overland Monthly. “One of my most important discoveries was that Charmian was not just Jack’s secretary (as had been previously assumed),” Dunkle said. “Charmian helped write several of Jack’s books and acted as his editor beginning with his novel, The Sea Wolf.”
Charmian more than deserves to be honored, said Dunkle. “Charmian was an equal to Jack. “They were definitely soul-mates; unafraid, athletic and adventurous.”
Volunteers at Jack London State Historic Park like Mary Oswald are pleased with the new focus on Charmian. “As the old saying goes, behind every great man there’s a woman.”
“I agree,” said Sonoma resident Jude Cameron, who stopped in at the exhibit. “Perhaps in this situation with Jack and Charmian, it was more about a woman beside him as an equal.”
Dunkle’s work is praised by the Jack London Society, and Sonoma State University’s former chair of the Communications Studies Department, Jonah Raskin, himself an expert on Jack London. Raskin calls the book, “Riveting…this biography sets the record straight as straight as it can be straightened…Despite her flaws, or perhaps because of them, Charmian is indeed the kind of woman whom one would love to have known.”
