‘It is easy to understand the mutual admiration and affinity’, the actor and writer Robert Speaight wrote, ‘between Mauriac and Graham Greene. Each was a specialist in sin, and the possibility of salvation.’38 Greene’s loyalty to Mauriac had come at a time when he was in some despair. He had written his first three books – The Man Within, The Name of Action and Rumour at Nightfall – under the influence of his great predecessor Joseph Conrad. Unfortunately, it wasn’t Conrad’s great novels but his inferior melodrama Arrow of Gold that influenced him. In September 1932 Greene had been shown into his publisher’s office, where Heinemann read him the riot act. They showed him evidence of the disastrous sales of his last two books and told him that there would be no further advances and no royalties on further books until all losses had been recovered. On the strength of his first novel’s success, Greene had left the safety of The Times, even though they had tried strenuously to persuade him to stay. In the early 1930s he was desperately short of money and faced failure as a writer.
In 1932 one of Mauriac’s best novels, Le Nœud de Vipères, appeared in English. Greene read it with an excitement which he remembered to the end of his life. For the first time, he saw the possibility of treating the contemporary world with the poetic realism he had admired in the Elizabethan and Jacobean dramatists. He turned his back on all he had written before. He had found a purpose to aid him in the ‘long drudgery of authorship’.
At Eyre & Spottiswoode Greene intended to bring out not only the complete works of Mauriac, but those of Ford Madox Ford as well, whom he thought grossly underrated: ‘No one in our century except James has been more attentive to the craft of letters,’ he wrote. He took over all of Ford’s best titles in order to produce a uniform edition. He was still very much the director and anticipated bringing them out within two years. However, before he could do so, he felt the need to offer his resignation.fn5
*
Greene was initially happy at Eyre & Spottiswoode and Muggeridge had a theory about this: ‘One of the many funny things about Graham is that he likes routine work, likes going to an office. In fact, he so disliked not going to an office that he set up a kind of office for himself that he would go and work in. This is how he met Dorothy Glover. He hated working at home, he didn’t like the life of an author, simply getting up in the morning and being all the time in the house.’ Muggeridge saw quite a lot of Greene in his office at Ryder Street and in his office in Eyre & Spottiswoode, and was sure that Greene preferred to go to an office to having none.39
Immediately after the war and while still in military uniform, Muggeridge visited the cramped quarters of Eyre & Spottiswoode in Bedford Street: ‘If I had occasion to talk with one of them [Greene], I was keenly aware of the other’s presence [Jerrold]; a telephone call by either produced a sort of anguished silence in which a third person found himself listening intently to every word spoken into the receiver, however softly.’40 (No wonder Jerrold knew exactly whom Greene telephoned on his arrival at the office.) Writing to Vivien from his office, Greene hurriedly brings his letter to a close: ‘I must stop now because Douglas is coming in and typing is rather noisy.’41
A publicity photograph has survived, taken in June 1947, in the offices of Eyre & Spottiswoode showing Jerrold sitting in publisher’s pose behind his desk, Eyre & Spottiswoode books in row on row behind him, and Greene looking grim (as he often did). Greene had thought of a way of improving the fiction list as the caption below the photograph explains:
Graham Greene and Douglas Jerrold are two of the directors of Eyre & Spottiswoode. Graham Greene writes novels, short stories (two recently in the Strand Magazine) and films. Jerrold edits the right-wing New English Review and wrote the History of the Royal Naval Division in World War I. [How different they were in everything, but especially politics.] Eyre & Spottiswoode recently … offered for a first novel a prize worth 1,000 pounds – five hundred paid outright and five hundred in advance royalties. Their list includes Hugh Kingsmill, Neil Bell, D. B. Wyndham Lewis, Hesketh Pearson and R. K. Narayan.
Greene had been as good as his word and brought Narayan, Wyndham Lewis and Mervyn Peake over to Eyre & Spottiswoode.
According to Muggeridge, Jerrold ‘gave an impression of being enormous. He dressed in an old-fashioned … way – black coat, striped trousers, stiff collar, foot-wear noticeably hand-made by Lobb. His head was tiny, thinly covered with sparse hair.’ Hugh Kingsmill used to say that Jerrold looked like ‘an inflated hors d’œuvre’.42
Muggeridge used to refer to Jerrold as ‘Mr Forcible Feeble’. Not only did Jerrold dress sombrely, but he sounded immensely gloomy (‘on the telephone as if already in Purgatory’).43 According to Anthony Powell, Jerrold could ‘bring instantaneous and inextricable confusion to the simplest transaction’44 and be verbose and pompous: ‘“Douglas gets as much pleasure from writing me a pompous letter”, Hugh Kingsmill once exclaimed, “as other people do from having a good fuck.”’45
Greene’s desire to leave Eyre & Spottiswoode was due simply to the tedium of dealing with authors. Even when handling interesting problems, as evidenced by the following letter from Robert Kee, he paid the price of sacrificing his own writing. Greene had brought Kee’s attention to certain rude words in A Crowd Is Not Company which demanded some compromises and Kee responded:
As to alternative rude words for the book I’m not sure really that the best thing isn’t to write ‘B—s’ for Balls (p. 44) – & this can’t stand – and ‘F—ing’ for ‘fucking’ (p. 76); ‘Put the shits up me’ (p. 77) could become ‘give me the shits’ which is an equally favourite expression among such people. If you can’t agree with blanks, ‘Balls’ could become ‘Bull shit!’ (or Bull?) and ‘fucking’ ‘bloody’. The blank principle can be extended to cover phrases like ‘well I’ll be buggered’ which I think comes in somewhere though I can’t find it, and ‘bugger off’ (p. 139).46
But Greene truly admired Kee’s novel, and set about ‘pushing’ it in a letter to Anthony Powell: ‘I do pledge my shirt that Kee is a writer of extraordinary ability with a great future.’47
Now that he was a publisher, he had to lunch with writers: ‘I went to a stiff lunch at the Ritz the other day given to a party of American authors who had been sent over here.’ He’d only heard of two of them, Rex Stout, the detective writer, and Kay Boyle, ‘as stiff and studied and silly as her books’.48 Indeed, it was while he was a publisher that Greene developed the habit of having a dry Martini before meals: ‘I had to have lunch with authors, and the idea of listening to these dreary people talking about their books right through a meal persuaded me that I had to give myself a boost to endure this drudgery.’ Yet this ‘drudgery’ was endured for very good reasons: ‘Are you by any chance a reader of the novels of Frances Parkinson Keyes?’ he wrote to his mother. ‘I’m not myself & don’t know anyone who is, but they have enormous sales & pay for all our offices & staff & God knows what.’49
In spite of Jerrold’s implied criticism that Greene in his first hour at work was doing everything but attend to publishing commitments, Greene was at times extremely busy trying to keep his writing alive while acting as publisher.
In an undated letter, but probably written early in 1947, Greene complains to his mother of not having written for a long time and of being very busy at Eyre & Spottiswoode: ‘Douglas [Jerrold] has been in America, & I’ve been involved in the script [for the film] of Brighton Rock & altogether it’s been a matter of all work & no play making me an extremely dull Jack … I feel very out of touch with my brothers & sisters, but lunch is my easiest meal so as not to break into my little time for work, & none of them are ever free for lunch.’50 He then lists for his mother his many problems: ‘First I had gastric flu … and now Douglas Jerrold is going to be away a month with flu,’ and he contrasts Jerrold’s behaviour with his own:
I took 3 days holiday with my flu & went across to Paris where my film Gun for Sale was having a big success & where my [French] publisher wanted me to put in
another appearance! I drank lots of wine & brandy & returned quite rested & cured … Next month I’ve let myself in for a talk at Downside. Film of Brighton Rock starts being made on 17th. Altogether there are not enough hours in the day. Sometimes wish I’d been a quiet stockbroker.51
In another letter, Greene reported that Jerrold was in America again: ‘& my chief editorial assistant is sick, & I find myself running the publishing with little more than a woman & a dog’. Moreover, these were difficult days as there were real shortages of paper, printers were closing down, and costs were up: ‘On Sunday week, I’m off to Amsterdam & Brussels again over printing, to try & fight the crisis.’52 Just before leaving he began a series of radio broadcasts, the first of which was about the crisis in printing and was transmitted on 9 March 1947.53
In October 1947 Greene spent a fortnight in New York City on business for Eyre & Spottiswoode. He arrived without the fanfare one might have expected for a famous British author, but that was the way he wanted it. While in New York, he was interviewed by a journalist who recorded: ‘Mr Greene is tall and spare (a splendid example of English rationing, someone at a near table whispered), and looking a little bit like a young (40 year old) dispassionate Scotland Yard man.’ In interview Greene played down his own entertainments: ‘He doesn’t see how people can care what happens to a Scotland Yard man … doesn’t really like his psychological thriller books,’ but played up his serious work: ‘He’s got a new, serious novel, The Heart of the Matter. It’s a non-thriller, and he thinks it’s good. Viking will publish it in the spring.’54 Greene was probably also looking out for future excitement. From the Gotham hotel he wrote: ‘I’m lunching on Wednesday and it’s a lot of Life boys who are thinking of making me their special correspondent in India!’55
Such a contract with Life would have been impossible if he remained with Eyre & Spottiswoode. He was restless; he longed both to travel and write after three years as a publisher: ‘I’m coming to a new arrangement with E. & S.,’ he wrote to his mother, ‘which after June 30 next year [1948] is going to give me much more time. I’m dallying with the idea of India at the end of next year, but that’s between ourselves for the present. Just off to see the New Statesman. I’m thinking of becoming their dramatic critic!’56
*
Greene’s departure from Eyre & Spottiswoode was more sudden than he had originally planned. Two possible explanations exist for it; Anthony Powell had one story and Greene the other.
Powell had written a small book about the seventeenth-century diarist John Aubrey entitled John Aubrey and His Friends. Finding that Oxford University Press’s offer was ‘unexciting’, he offered it, on the advice of his friend Muggeridge, to Graham Greene. A contract was signed in May 1946, undertaking that the book would appear within nine months. Two and a half years went by and still John Aubrey and His Friends had not appeared. The delay was chiefly because of the shortage of paper, but also, as it transpired, because Greene felt that Powell’s book was tedious and other books should take precedence. It was finally scheduled to come out in the late autumn of 1948.
In that autumn, Greene, Muggeridge and Powell met for lunch at the Authors’ Club, ‘an odd little backwater housed in Whitehall Court … dominated by Edwardian literary memories’.57 Kingsmill, Muggeridge, Powell and Greene were all members – Kingsmill, according to Powell, ‘virtually edited the book pages of the New English Review there’ and ‘was always to be found asleep every afternoon in one of the upright chairs; a coma from which he would emerge for tea at about four o’clock’. The club was closely linked with Douglas Jerrold, who was ‘the most prominent member of its committee and in general guardian angel’.58
As Powell explained, it was during the course of the lunch that Greene revealed that John Aubrey would be delayed again, until the following year. Powell, in his modest way, recalled the events that followed: ‘I made a fairly vigorous demur. There was a brisk exchange, in the course of which Greene said: “It’s a bloody boring book anyway.”’59 Powell felt that such a comment from the managing director (Greene was in fact deputy managing director) of the firm responsible for marketing the book was discouraging, to say the least, and said he assumed Greene’s words implied release from a contract that offered further books of his (of course these included his much more important novels) to Eyre & Spottiswoode. Greene agreed ‘that consequence was implicit in the view he had expressed. The rest of the luncheon passed without incident.’60
This passage of arms found its way into Muggeridge’s diary, an entry vaguely dated 15–17 September 1948:
Curious lunch with Graham Greene and Tony. Started off with a stupid row about delay in Eyre and Spottiswoode’s publishing Tony’s book on John Aubrey. Hugh Kingsmill joined us and we laughed a great deal over a letter of protest which we drew up about the club silence room being abolished. Graham has a decided love of conflict. Very typical figure of this time – which is why his novels are so successful.61
And five weeks later, there is a further entry: ‘Gathered from Douglas Jerrold that a row is brewing between him and Graham Greene, about Graham’s agreement to release Tony Powell from his novel contract with Eyre and Spottiswoode.’62
At the time of the fracas Douglas Jerrold was in the United States. He came back to find a letter from the literary agent David Higham notifying Eyre & Spottiswoode that the contract Powell had signed for new novels was cancelled. The board of directors met, but was not prepared to withdraw from the contract. Indeed, in a letter to Powell dated 29 October, Jerrold stated firmly: ‘Graham has no more power to release you from your contract with this firm than I have to sell the company’s furniture and premises,’ and he went on: ‘Graham’s commitments have since proved to be such that he has had to resign his executive position here and he is now only a valued member of our Board, with purely advisory functions, as he will tell you himself if you ask him.’ From this it looks as if Greene’s angry outburst at the Authors’ Club led to his offering Eyre & Spottiswoode his resignation.
However, as late as 1981, Greene maintained that his resignation had nothing to do with Anthony Powell. ‘That was a non-fiction book, and Jerrold had agreed to its publication, but because I had introduced it to Jerrold, to some extent I was keeping an eye on it, but I wasn’t responsible for it. Tony Powell didn’t realise about post-war paper rationing. Books couldn’t be published as before the war.’63 Nevertheless, Greene had not changed his mind about the book. He repeated to me what he had said more forcefully at the Authors’ Club in 1948: ‘It was a very dull book!’
The arrangement between Greene and Jerrold was that Greene should be responsible for the fiction list and Jerrold for non-fiction. It was agreed also that while Greene was on holiday Jerrold would accept no fiction and while Jerrold was on holiday Greene would accept no non-fiction. Jerrold, according to Greene, broke this agreement.
When Greene returned from holiday he found that Jerrold had accepted ‘a very bad imitation of Brighton Rock, full of soft porn’.64 Also awaiting his return was a letter from Colonel Crosthwaite-Eyre, a former chairman of the board and a major shareholder in Eyre & Spottiswoode, who had retired to South Africa. In this letter (written to Greene because he was in charge of the fiction list) he told him that he had burned the book in his garden. Greene was indignant because he was blamed for a very bad novel which he had not accepted. At the next meeting of the directors, Greene circulated a little piece of paper on which he had written: ‘“Agenda for next directors’ meeting” – resignation of Director.’ His resignation was accepted.
He left Eyre & Spottiswoode in 1948. He had had tremendous success with the publication of The Heart of the Matter and knew now that he could live on his writing and no longer needed to work for a publishing firm. To the Czech writer Egon Hostovsky whom he had taken on, Greene wrote in January 1949: ‘I had meant to write to you some time ago and tell you that I have left Eyre & Spottiswoode. It became more and more impossible to carry on publishing and my own writing as well
… I hope one day we may meet again, this time as fellow authors and not author and publisher!’65
He left the firm then over a disagreement with Douglas Jerrold, who was the chairman, but it was a friendly disagreement: ‘Really I was fed up with being a publisher.’ But Greene was not revealing the whole truth of the affair, as a letter to Powell reveals. It suggests that their argument did bring about Greene’s resignation. After Jerrold had written to Powell saying that Greene had resigned and that Greene had no power to release Powell from his contract, Powell wrote to Greene in a cold professional manner: ‘Your statement that Eyre & Spottiswoode released me from my contract with them seemed to me both authoritative and explicit when we discussed the matter in September. Can you confirm this?’66
Greene’s response was close to an admission of error:
I expect you have heard by this time that I have resigned from the board of Eyre and Spottiswoode. Your case really brought matters to a head but the boil had been growing for many months. It is quite true that I offered to release you from your novel contract … I did, however, very much hope after our meeting in the Authors’ Club that the whole thing might blow over and I heard from David Higham that it was unlikely you would press the withdrawal of your novels.67
*
There was a sequel to Greene’s resignation. Douglas Jerrold was always threatening to retire. Indeed, it was his half-promise that he would retire which persuaded Greene to go into the firm in the first place. Jerrold did do so, but not until ten years after Greene’s resignation.
Sir Oliver Crosthwaite-Eyre, who had not forgotten Greene’s genius as a publisher, offered him the opportunity to become chairman. By 1958, Eyre & Spottiswoode had joined with Methuen and Associated British Publishers and had increased enormously in significance. What Crosthwaite-Eyre offered Greene was the opportunity of a lifetime, a true family business which would have allowed his son Francis to enter a substantial publishing firm: ‘What I would like to suggest to you is that we should make arrangements for Douglas to retire in the autumn, that you should join us as Managing and Editorial Director of the Publishers, that you would also join the board of Associated British Publishers and that of Eyre & Spottiswoode Limited.’68 Crosthwaite-Eyre felt that Greene should have the three appointments, if he were to be kept properly in the picture as to the development the enlarged publishers would be undertaking. However, he tried to sweeten the offer by promising Greene that he would not have ‘nearly so much “desk sitting”’ and, because he knew that Greene, then at the height of his fame, would need time off to write, suggested at least six weeks a year free to engage in his own work.
The Life of Graham Greene (1939-1955) Page 26