London jackpot

One of the nation's finest Jack London collections is now housed in Baker Library. The collection, containing several hundred items by and about the noted American writer, has been given to the College by Dr. Marvin A. Rauch '35 and his wife, Sue, of Far Rockaway, N.Y. Baker will mount an exhibit from the London collection in June.

The collection contains first editions of London's books, many first appearances in magazines of his books and short stories, critical and biographical books, several letters and books signed and inscribed by London, and many more items, including a pencil portrait of London inscribed, "Yours for the Revolution, Jack London."

London writer, sailor, socialist, adventurer, and explorer was born in poverty in Oakland, Calif., in 1876. By the time he took his life at age 40, he had become America's most popular writer. The Rauches are fond of noting that probably no person ever crammed more living into four decades than did London. At 17, London shipped off to Japan and the Bering Sea as an able seaman. He became an oyster pirate, a gold seeker in the Klondike, a newspaper correspondent during the Russo-Japanese War, and a war correspondent in Mexico. His stories began to appear about 1900. He wrote many books, including the popular The Call of the Wild,The Sea-Wolf, White Fang, and The Cruiseof the Snark. He also became an outspoken social critic, living for a time disguised as a poor man in London, and he considered his social tracts The Peopleof the Abyss and The Iron Heel to have been his best works.

Rauch became interested in London while reading the author's adventure stories as a young boy. During his student days at Dartmouth, he continued reading London's works and developed a deep appreciation for his writing skills. Rauch, also a sailor and lover of the sea, was attracted to the adventurous London. He and his wife gathered much of their collection while sailing along the East Coast, stopping at out-of-the-way ports and visiting book stores and antique shops.

Baker is an especially appropriate location for the Rauches' large London collection, for Rauch spent hours studying in the then-new library while he was an undergraduate. Stanley W. Brown '67, Dartmouth's special collections librarian and curator of rare books, has described the London collection as "magnificent." Brown said recently, "We pride ourselves in being very strong in 20th-century American literature, but we had very little of Jack London. Now we have one of the best London collections in the nation."