The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1906-05-06
NOVELIST MAKES
AN EXPLANATION
Jack London Pleads Guilty TO
Charge of SamenesS
SPACE WRITER TEMPTED
Newspapers Furnish Plots in Their
Columns for the Good Stories
That Novelists Write, Says
One of Them.
SPACE WRITER TEMPTED

Jack London has written the following
letter to S. S. Mcclure in explanation of
his apparent plagiarism of the story
Lost in the Land of the Midnight
Sum"
Life is so short and people SO silly
that from the very beginning of my
career when I first began to get news
paper notoriety because of my youthful
| socialism, l made it a point to deny
nothing charged against me in the
newspapers. On the other hand, 1 have
made it courtesy to deny such things
when requested to do so by my friends.
| Wherefore, because of your request,
am now making this explanation OF
the similarity between my Love of
Life" and Augustus Brides and j. X.
MacDonald's Lost in the Land of the
Midnight Sum-"
Stories From Newspapers.
1t is a common practice of authors to
draw material for their stories from
the newspapers. Here are facts of
life reported in journalistic style, wait
ing to be made into literature. So COM
mon is this practice that often anus
ing consequences are caused by sew
eral writer's utilizing the same ma
terial. Some years ago, while 1 was in
England, a story of mine was published
in the San Francisco Argonaut. In the
| Century of the same date was published
story by Frank Morris. While these
two stories were quite different in manner
of treatment. they were patiently the same
in foundation and motive. AT once the
newspapers paraIleled our stories. The
explanation was simple: Morris and l
had read the same newspaper account
and proceeded to exploit it. But the fun
did not stop there. Somebody dug up a
Black Cat published a year previous, in
which was a similar story by another
man who used the same foundation and
motive Then Chicago hustled around and
resurrected a story that had been pub
lished some months before the Black Cat
| story and that was the same in founda-
tion and motive. OF course all these diff
ferent writer's had CHANGED upon the same
newspaper article.
Practice Recommended.
So common is this practice of au-
| thors that it is recommended by all
| the instructors in the art of the short
| story to read the newspapers and mag
azines in order to get material. Charles
Reade swore by this practice | might
name lengthy list of the great writ
ers who have advised this practice.
| All the foregoing merely to show
that this practice exists and is gen.
orally employed by story writers. Now
| to the Love of Life" which the New
York World so generously paralleled
with Lost in the Land of the Mid
night Sun Lost in the Land of the
Midnight Sun is not a story. 1t is
narrative of fact 1t was published
in McClures Magazine. 1t tells the
actual sufferlngs of the man with
| sprained ankle in the country of the
| Coppermine river. 1t is not fiction
| and 1t is not literature. 1 took the
| facts of life contained In it, added to
| them many other facts of life gained
| from other sources, and made, or at
| tempted to make, a piece of literature
out of them. There was another mar
rative of suffering that l used quite
| as extensively as did Lost in the
Land of the Midnight SUM-" This other
| narrative was a newspaper account of
| Nome, Alaska. On top of this l drew
| upon all my own personal experiences
of hardship and suffering and starva-
| tion and upon the whole fund of
| knowledge I had of the hardship and
suffering and starvation of hundreds and
| thousands of other men.
If you will turn to the end of my
| Love Of Life" you will find that my
| rescued hero becomes suddenly fat. This
| abrupt obesity was caused by his stuff
| fing under his shirt all the spare hard
| tack he could beg from the sailors Now
| l did not invent this. Ii IS a fact of life.
| You will find 1t in Lieutenant Greely's
| narrative of the Greedy Polar Expedi-
| ton l scarcely see how / could be
charged with plaglarizing from Leuten-
ant Greedy, and yet IL | plagiarized from
Augustus Bride and j. K. Macdonald
| for some of my material, l must have
plagiarized from the newspaper CORE
| spondent who describes the wandering
| of the Nome prospecters, and l must
have plagiarized from the experiences
of scores and scores of Alaskan pros
| pectors, whose accounts l have heard
| from their own lips.
Worlds Charge.
The World, however, did not charge
me with plagiarism. 1t charged me
with identity of time and situation. Ger
| tainly the World is right. l plead
| guilty, and I am glad that the World
| was intelligent enough not to charge me
with identity of language.
But little remains to be said. It might
| be well to explain how that half page
! of deadly parallel was published in the
| World. In the first place, sensation.
| Sensation is the goods demanded by a
newspaper of dts space writers. The
| suggestion of plagiarism is always SEN
| sational. When a half page of deadly
parallel is run in a newspaper plagiar-
| ism is certainly suggested. The loose
meaning of words in the average mind
| would make ninety per cent of the read
| ers of such parallel infer that plagiar-
| ism had been charged
Secondly the space-writer writes for
a living. hope for his own souls sake
| that this particular space writer also
writes for his living. His newspaper
wanted the goods of sensation and nv