Archives West Finding Aid

This collection contains the personal and professional papers of James Edward Sisson III. This ten box collection contains biographical information on Sisson in the form of personal papers and personal correspondence, but the bulk of the collection contains materials relevant to those conducting research on Jack London. Those desiring to use this collection for research on Jack London can primarily find information on him in the form of (1) Sisson's research papers (2) incoming correspondence from both domestic and foreign Jack London researchers, (3) a collection of unpublished poems by numerous authors about Jack London, (4) and rare newspaper clippings and articles by and about Jack London.

Box 1 contains Sisson's personal papers and papers concerning his research on Jack London. These papers consist of biographical information on Sisson, his graduate school papers, his address books, and some bibliographical notes on Jack London and London's father.

Boxes 2—8 contain Sisson's personal and professional incoming and outgoing correspondence. Outgoing correspondence is organized chronologically and incoming correspondence is organized alphabetically, then chronologically. Letters of correspondence were placed in separate folders when a single author sent more than ten letters, or if the letters were sent by Sisson's family. Some of Sisson's personal letters, such as letters from let his mother can be found in Boxes 6 and 7, while letters from his sister can be found in Box 5, Fd 2. Special interest letters, such as the seven incoming letters from Becky London Fleming (Jack London's daughter) are located in Box 3, Fd 6. Many letters, which comprise the bulk of this collection, are from domestic Jack London researchers. Numerous incoming letters from international researchers, such as from Sakae Fujiwara (from Japan, working on translating London's writing into Japanese), Eiji Tsujii (another researcher from Japan), and Jean Louis Postif (a London researcher from France, whose letters are written in French) comprise a sample of the materials in this collection.

Box 9 contains typescripts of Jack and Charmian London correspondence, Sisson's research papers on Jack London, over two-hundred unpublished poems about Jack London, and a variety of hard-to-come-by publications about Jack London. Folder 1 contains reproductions of three Jack London letters, a photocopy of a book announcement by Jack London, and a reproduced letter of Charmian London. Folder 3 contains photocopies of a government file concerning the desire of officials to censor Jack London's socialist writings. The poems have been organized in the order they were received, in an attempt to preserve Sisson's desire to have them published. This box also contains two newsletters, one of which contains an article on Jack London's popularity in Russian literary circles.

Box 9 and 10 contain a wide variety of reproduced rare newspaper articles by and about Jack London, such as one article in Russian and one article in German. These newspaper articles are primarily from California newspapers, but a substantial number come from Midwest and New England newspapers. Of particular interest is a set of newspaper articles from The Socialist, of Melbourne, Australia a journal in which Jack London was especially active.