An informative, detailed and interesting introduction leads well into the collected material. The forty-three collected pieces in the first edition of No Mentor But Myself: Jack London on Writing and Writers have been here extended literally, and explicated further, by the addition of twenty-four new entries in this, the expanded second edition.

Of this additional material, three pieces are here published for the first time. “Two Letters To Charles Warren Stoddard (1900-1901)”, from page 218, and “Letter To ‘Mr. Revision Editor’ (Woman’s Home Companion) (February 5, 1902)”, from page 210.    

The literary selection here has been chosen to represent what the Editors call London’s “three broad general categories” of “the writing business, the work ethic, and mentorship” (xiv). As with the first edition, the main body of material is arranged thematically in accordance with these subjects, and presented chronologically. The new material is added at the end, and, though not in chronological order, it does continue with the thematic order.   

Header notes for each chapter elucidate the practical questions relating to each letter or group of letter, explaining in what circumstances they were written, to whom and what role the recipient(s) took in London’s life. Annoyingly, too often these notes go on to dissolve into unnecessary reiterations of what has come before in the Introduction.

London was an unconventional man who led an unconventional life. He travelled widely and was, at various times, a labourer, an illegal oyster pirate, an officer of the California Fish Patrol, a sailor, a homeless drifter, a prison inmate, a street corner speaker, a socialist party member, a gold prospector, a journalist, a war correspondent, a writer, a designer and builder of ships, and a rancher. In collecting pieces of his day-to-day correspondence, it would be impossible to produce an uninteresting book. This material is very worthwhile reading in its own right. As with his great literary works, these letters reflect his socialistic criticisms and ideologies, his concerns with innumerable and varied “issues of community”, and his love of the natural world, whilst documenting the life of a writer and his philosophies on writing professionally. 

The Editors provide a useful and interesting Chronology of London’s life, and their Bibliography doubles as a Suggested Readings list. This extended book is at once a literary-biographical tool for students, an education for writers, a sociology lesson, and a very, very good read.