Popular American novelist (1876–1916) best known for such adventure classics as The Call of the Wild, The Sea-Wolf, and White Fang. TLS, two pages, 8.5 x 9, Glen Ellen letterhead, stamp-dated March 2, 1913. Letter of response to Mr. Koontz who sent a book to be signed by London. In part, “I have been a socialist for over a score of years now. I was arrested 20 years ago in the first socialist street fight for free speech on the Pacific Coast, and I have been fighting the fight ever since…I was the first President of the Intercollegiate Socialist Society of the United States, and was the first man to carry socialism into all our big colleges, such as Yale, Harvard, Columbia, Bowdoin, Oberlin…I gave the pioneer socialist speech in Honolulu…which resulted in the formation of a local. I gave the first socialist speech in Tahiti, in the South Seas which resulted in forming a local.” London has closed with his familiar salutation “Yours for the Revolution.” London first joined the Socialist Labor Party in April 1896. In 1901 he left the Socialist Labor Party and joined the new Socialist Party of America. In 1896 the San Francisco Chronicle published a story about the 20-year-old London who was out nightly in Oakland’s City Hall Park, giving speeches on socialism to the crowds-an activity for which he was arrested in 1897. He ran unsuccessfully as the high-profile Socialist nominee for mayor of Oakland in 1901 and 1905. In very good condition, with second page taped long ago to bottom of first, slight paper loss at three corners, toning from tape to edges, intersecting mailing folds, and some mild page toning. Auction LOA John Reznikoff/PSA/DNA and R&R COA.
