Both Jack London and Harry Houdini needed Charmian London in their own way.
First, Jack London. Jack famously wrote fifty books in fifteen years! Call of the Wild, Sea Wolf, White Fang, and my personal favorite, Valley of the Moon... the list goes on! His secret weapon? Charmian London.
This dynamic duo started each day with a boxing match with each other! Then, Jack would spin tales while Charmian typed his every word, 1,000 words a day. She’d then edit and polish, while Jack tended to their sprawling Beauty Ranch on horseback, where they raised prized Shire horses, cattle, pigs, vineyards, and eucalyptus groves. Jack was obsessed with expanding Beauty Ranch, each new book paying for another piece of bordering land.
The Jack and Charmian partnership was as wild and untamed as Jack’s stories... until the Great Houdini himself entered their lives.
Houdini was a man striving to push the limits of human existence, using his powerful body and acute mind to accomplish feats never before achieved. While Houdini loved his wife, Bess, she never developed into a woman due to a medical condition. (Houdini historian John Cox, Wild about Houdini). We can only imagine the Houdinis shared a loving friendship. But when Houdini met the passionate Charmian London, who was college-educated, an author, a champion horsewoman, a concert pianist, and a bohemian free-lover, he must have been overwhelmed with emotions. He experienced what passion could be, and (according to historians Kalush and Sloman) told Charmian, “I’m mad about you.”
“I give all myself to you.”
“I would have told my mother about you.”
It seems Houdini needed more passion in his life, and he found it in Charmian London in 1918. The pair corresponded until Houdini’s death on Halloween, 1926.
Read more about the Houdinis and Londons in The Secret Life of Mrs. London.
GOLD DIGGER and SILVER ECHOES by historical novelist Rebecca Rosenberg are available now at Amazon
