London, Jack

Autograph manuscript signed (“Jack London”) of The Game, his novel about boxing, 119 pages (10 x 8 in.; 257 x 200 mm), [Oakland], September 1904, in ink on rectos only of lined sheets, a working (first) draft with extensive revisions, some passages not used in the book edition (including the final sentence of the manuscript); a few margins slightly frayed, some minor soiling, but in very good condition. Blue half morocco slipcase.

Unnamed consignor (sale, American Art Association, 11 March 1930, lot 227, manuscript and letter only) — Marjorie Wiggin Prescott (sale, 6 February 1981, lot 230, all except the 1919 reprint)

The manuscript of the first American boxing novel.  London’s novel about an Oakland prize-fighter was probably written in about a month: the manuscript bears the small rubber stamped date of “August 31, 1904,” at the top of page 1 and he has signed and dated (“Sept. 30, 1904") the  work at end. It was first published in the Metropolitan Magazine in March and April 1905; publication in book form (see below) followed in June. The central character in the short novel is a young boxer, Joe Fleming, “the Pride of West Oakland,” who promises his fiancee that he will give up prize-fighting, what he calls “the Game,” after one more bout. Unfortunately, this last fight is against a bruiser, a “beast incarnate,” from across the bay in San Francisco named John Ponta. About half of The Game is set in the smoky, seedy Oakland arena where the 15-rounder is being held and fully a third of the work is devoted to London’s gripping, blow-by-blow account of the fight itself. In the 14th round Ponta lands a lucky punch which knocks out Fleming, who is mortally injured when the back of his head slams into the mat.

 “London’s ... prizefighting novel began a new minor genre — the American boxing story ... Fundamentally, it was another indication of the author’s deep pessimism of the summer [of 1904] ... Beauty and intellect and love are useless in the face of sly change and brute necessity. All is the game of life and death, and the loser takes all” (Sinclair, Jack. A Biography of Jack London, p. 110). George Bernard Shaw’s first book, Cashel Byron’s Profession, published in 1886, was a novel about a prize-fighter. To the best of our knowledge London’s The Game is the first novel about boxing by an American author, certainly by a significant writer (there could be an earlier dime novel lurking somewhere). “Not only was London an excellent boxer and an even better fight reporter, but he was also a pioneer in the use of the boxing ring in fiction ... [An] illustration of the power of London’s pen was Gene Tunney’s decision to quit boxing after reading The Game ... Later, when Tunney felt Rocky Marciano should retire, he gave him a copy of the same book and asked him to read it very carefully” (Kingman, A Pictorial Life of Jack London, p. 225). “London virtually invented the modern prize-fight story” (Labor, Jack London, p.164). Later London works centered on boxing are the stories “A Piece of Steak” (1911) and “The Mexican” (1913) and the short novel The Abysmal Brute (1913). This American genre pioneered by London would culminate in the classics, Budd Schulberg’s The Harder They Fall (1947) and W.C. Heinz’s The Professional (1958).  Book length manuscripts such as The Game by London are very rare on the market, virtually all now in institutional repositories.

With:

London. Autograph letter signed (“Jack London”), 2 pages (10 x 8 in.; 257 x 200 mm), n.p., n.d., to the editor Richard Watson Gilder of The Century Magazine; in gray-brown ink on two sheets of lined paper (same as the manuscript sheets), worn at edges with a few letters touched, second sheet wrinkled; in the above slipcase.  London offers the manuscript of The Game to Gilder for publication: “This thing somehow just got away with me & I had to go on writing it. As regards length & subject matter, it is the ‘unusual’ thing. The prize-ring has never been understandingly done into literature — & when it has been attempted, it has been a description of a contest between world-champions by a man who didn’t know anything about it ... [The Game] is a transcript from life ... It is merely a transcript from the life of the western end of this my own town Oakland. And the fight, if nothing else, is real.”  Not in Letters, ed. Labor, Leitz, and Shepard, and presumably unpublished.

With:

London. The Game. New York: Macmillan, 1905. In 8s (7 3/8  x 5 in.; 189 x 128 mm). Illustrations and decorations by Henry Hutt and T. C. Lawrence. Original green pictorial cloth, uncut; rubbed and slightly soiled. Rare pictorial dust jacket, vignette of a shrouded Death on front panel (same as on front cover of the book) against an orange and white background, lettering in blue; jacket from another copy, chipped, spine and real panel soiled. Blue half morocco slipcase. First edition, the variant with the rubber-stamped notice on copyright page (BAL’s Form B of the notice — no priority). Presentation copy to one of the book's illustrators, inscribed by the author on the pictorial half-title: “To Henry Hutt, — With grateful appreciation and hearty best wishes, Jack London, Glen Ellen, California, August 8, 1905.”  Hutt illustrated The Game in both book and serial form; his glossy color inserts portrayed scenes from the novel. Lawrence provided the decorations for the volume; his “black-and-white line drawings and chapter frontispieces depicted Death as a skeleton manipulating the plot” (Letters, p. 484). References: BAL 11886; Sisson & Martens, pp 121-22; Hanna 2224 (“Boxing and boxers in the San Francisco area”).

With:

London. The Game. London: Heinemann, 1919. In 8s (6 3/4 x 4 1/4 in.; 172 x 110 mm). Illustrated. Original decorated red cloth. Pictorial dust jacket showing two fighters in the ring.