The Letters of Dorothy L. Sayers. Vol. 1
Page 12
The play still survives1 – 100th performance on Thursday – but last week we did rather poor business and all feared the worst. I hope it will be all right, but one is kept in a perpetual state of anxiety and fidgets. Mr Tendall has asked me whether you could go camping again this summer, and I said, by all means, if you would like to. So you just tell him and arrange with Aunt Ivy.
I dealt firmly and competently with the Logans – giving them a cocktail party, dinner and seats for the show, and they departed satisfied, having bored everybody to death. A dull, well-intentioned pair!
With love,
Mother
1 i.e. The Zeal of Thy House.
[24 Newland Street
Witham
Essex]
TO MARGERY VOSPER
4 July 1938
Dear Margery,
As you will have seen, we departed from the Duke of York’s1 on Saturday in a blaze of glory; the staff, both backstage and front of house, weeping gallons of angry tears over us, and having to hold the curtain for ten minutes at the matinée because of the crowds fighting in the foyer. Westminster history repeats itself. Guy Charles is trying to get his touring dates pencilled, and I shall be up next week and will go into the situation with you and him. In the meantime, I enclose copies of two letters which have come in about amateur performances. Father Kelly’s application for the theological students is in rather a different category from the ordinary amateur show, and it might be possible to give him permission for what he wants, if you thought well. In any case, please treat him with peculiar tenderness, as he is some fantastic age, 84 or something!1 My company left on Saturday in a fighting spirit, and I think most of them will be ready to do the tour unless they get very tempting engagements in the meantime. The scenery and props have gone to the Westminster for storage, the costumes are with Frank Napier and the scripts will come to me, so that everything can be reassembled promptly when required.
I am hoping to get through all necessary work this month, so as to be able to take a holiday in August, so let us hope Guy Charles will be able to stimulate his managers. I have told him to arrange with you about the financial terms for himself.
Yours ever,
[D. L. S.]
1 Zeal had moved to the Duke of York’s, where it played from 13 June to 2 July 1938.
1 Father Kelly was then 78 years old.
[24 Newland Street
Witham
Essex]
TO HENRY WADE1
11 July 1938
Dear Henry,
Don’t bother about the Children’s Hospital at Highbury unless you feel like it; what happened was, that this bloke wrote asking would I endow a cot to be named after me? I said I neither would nor could, but that if he was able to collect sufficient subscriptions from detective writers, I would contribute to a detective writers’ cot. I also gave him a few names and addresses, saying that he might mention what I had said, but was not, on any account, to make himself a nuisance. I think a number of Club2 members have contributed various sums from one guinea upwards, but there is absolutely no obligation on you, nor any special interest so far as I am concerned, other than the interest one has generally in children’s hospitals.
I am so glad the family enjoyed the play; they were most sweet about it, and we had a merry tea with some of the actors afterwards.
Yours ever,
[D. L. S.]
1 Henry Wade (1887–1969), the pen-name of Major Sir Henry Aubrey-Fletcher, was an author of detective stories.
2 i.e. the Detection Club.
24 Newland Street
Witham
Essex
TO IVY SHRIMPTON
24 July 1938
Dearest Ivy,
I fear we are again faced with the bother of school outfits. I enclose list for Malvern. Will you cope and let me know the result.
Life has been strenuous as usual lately – culminating last week and the week before in a mild dose of flu followed by a small and foolish burglary at my flat.1 Just as I had tottered back to sanity, I was obliged to spend a wearisome night interviewing the police. The men didn’t get very much – only a camera and a few rugs and a pound or two in cash, and I’m insured – but it was a bore and a waste of time. I’m struggling now to get the arrangements through for a tour of Zeal of Thy House in September, before going to Venice on August 3. Hope you are all right – I’ll send you my Venice address as soon as I know it.
Yours ever with love,
Dorothy
1 An incident mentioned in her article “How Free is the Press?”, first published in World Review, June 1941, later republished in Unpopular Opinions, Gollancz, 1946; see here.
940 Calle Dei Frati
San Trovaso
Venice1
TO HER SON
10 August 1938
Dear John,
I think your house2 is No. 4; but I am not quite certain. I left all the particulars with my solicitor who is dealing with the business side of things while I am abroad. He could tell you for certain – his name is Mr C. Kelly, Hargrave, Son and Barrett, 24, John St., Bedford Row, W.C.I.
I enclose your altogether admirable report for Aunt Ivy.
Having a pleasant time here. Venice is as beautiful as usual, but rather subject to thunderstorms at the moment. It is cooler than it was, but one feels pretty lazy all the same.
Glad you enjoy Eddington.3 He isn’t exactly easy reading, but he does end up with an attempt to deal with what you were speaking of – from how few assumptions one can build up a coherent universe.
I didn’t have time before I left to look out the Dante4 – so sorry. You shall have it for next term.…5
1 This was D. L. S.’ second holiday in Venice. Once again she was accompanied by Marjorie Barber. By the time she returned she had written the play Love All, which is partly set in Venice.
2 John Anthony had won a scholarship to Malvern College. The reference is to the house to which he had been assigned.
3 Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington, O.M. (1882–1944), astronomer. John Anthony was probably reading The Nature of the Physical World, first published in 1928. He was then 14 years old.
4 Six years were to pass before D. L. S. began to read Dante herself. She was to bring Eddington and Dante together in an amusing dialogue in “Dante’s Cosmos”, a paper she read to the Royal Institution in 1951. (See Further Papers on Dante, Methuen, 1957, pp. 78 101.) She also mentions Eddington in The Documents in the Case and in the short story, “Absolutely Elsewhere”, first published with the title “Impossible Alibi”, in Mystery, vol. 9, no. 1, January 1934, later republished in In the Teeth of the Evidence, November 1939.
5 The letter is unsigned.
On 15 September 1938 John Dickson Carr wrote as follows:
…what do you think of having a genuine Viennese psychologist to talk to the Detection Club on murder? One has been unearthed…
[24 Newland Street
Witham
Essex]
TO JOHN DICKSON CARR
18 September 1938
Dear Mr. Carr,
I should think a genuine Viennese psychoanalyst would be very interesting, provided he was not embarrassingly earnest, if you know what I mean. That is to say, if he will set forth a thesis rather than preach a gospel! I may add that there is in me a devilish tendency to fight psychoanalysts whenever I may1, though as far as I am concerned it ought to be great fun.
Very many thanks again for honouring me with the dedication of The Crooked Hinge.2 I look forward immensely to reading it, but then I always look forward to your books, dedication or no dedication.
With best wishes for a grand holiday,
Yours ever,
[Dorothy L. Sayers]
1 In an unpublished draft of notes for a curriculum vitae, undated but probably 1928, D. L. S. had listed under Views: “bored with Freudians, psycho-analysts, Russians and people who exploit adolescence”.
2 Published by Hamish Hamilton, 1938. The dedicat
ion reads: “To Dorothy L. Sayers in Friendship and Esteem”.
24 Great James Street
W.C.I
TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES
24 September 19381
“TROILUS AND CRESSIDA” AT THE WESTMINSTER
Sir,
Your Dramatic Critic seems a little surprised to discover that Troilus and Cressida is a play about a war and not about a love affair. Modern-dress productions frequently have this merit of restoring the emphasis to the place where Shakespeare put it. The Greek swords and helmets of a period production distract attention from the actuality of the fighting; but one thing that strikes one in even a cursory reading of this most difficult work is that here is the great “war-debunking” play, whose savage bitterness has never been equalled before or since. Troilus is, indeed, a fool, with the pathetic folly of all young and generous spirits who idealize wantons. And Cressid, like the great wanton War, bestows her favours on the brute Diomedes, who demands and takes. If ever there was a play for the times it is this.
Yours, &c.,
Dorothy L. Sayers
1 The date of publication.
[24 Newland Street
Witham
Essex]
TO LADY FLORENCE CECIL
4 October 1938
Dear Lady Florence,
Forgive my delay in answering your letter; I have been very busy as you will realise when I tell you that the provincial tour1 of The Zeal of Thy House opened last Monday week in Norwich in the very middle of the war scare.2 We had three very upsetting financially disastrous days, after which things pulled themselves together a bit. I was in Norwich until Wednesday, and then had to come back to London to deal with the financial situation caused by all these alarms. Since I am, to some extent, involved in backing the tour, I am afraid I am not very flush of cash, but I have pleasure in sending a cheque for £3 for the Clergy’s widows wishing that it could be more.
With kindest regards and all good wishes,
Yours very sincerely,
[Dorothy L. Sayers]
1 The tour of Zeal, with Harcourt Williams in the part of William of Sens, opened in September. John Hotchkiss directed the music. Cf. letter to her son, 6 November 1938.
2 See letter to Ivy Shrimpton, 6 November 1938, note 1.
[24 Newland Street
Witham
Essex]
TO MARGARET BABINGTON
25 October 1938
Dear Miss Babington,
It is rather difficult for me, at the moment, to say “Yes” or “No” to your very flattering request that I should again write the Canterbury play for you.1 From the point of view of personal pleasure, nothing would delight me more; on the other hand, I have to bear in mind that these plays are not a very lucrative business. I have, in fact, lost a good deal of money on taking Zeal to London, and I do not think I shall get it back on tour, since at the moment, it seems very difficult to get people to come and see plays on religion. On the other hand, if one does not take the play to London, it means putting in a vast amount of work and time for very small compensation, so that I should have to think it over carefully, and see whether I can afford it. Also, I hope you will forgive me if I once again draw attention to the amount of physical and mental suffering caused to the actors and myself by the acoustics of the Chapter House! They add greatly to the difficulty of writing the dialogue, and it is depressing for the actors to know that however well they act it is difficult to make themselves heard, and also (on account of the seats not being raked) difficult for them to be seen by a great part of the audience. If only something could be done to overcome these difficulties it would add greatly to my enthusiasm in setting about a new play.
Do believe me that I am not trying to be tiresome; I so greatly enjoyed my connection with Canterbury in 1937 that it is quite difficult for me not to say “Yes” at once, and let the practical considerations go hang. I am sure you will understand how I am placed. In the meantime, I will look through the literature about Archbishop Sudbury, and see how it appeals to me as a play.
I am very glad indeed you liked the articles, “The Greatest Drama Ever Staged” [etc.]; they have let me in for a terrible lot of correspondence with bishops and Baptist ministers, and an astonishing number of requests to address religious bodies and open flower shows!
I will write to you again when I have had time to think the matter of the play over.
With kindest regards to all my friends at Canterbury,
Yours very sincerely,
[Dorothy L. Sayers]
P.S. I shall be in London on Wednesday and Thursday, November 2nd and 3rd, and shall be free in the mornings if you could manage to come up for a talk, which perhaps would be the best way of getting the thing thrashed out.
1 D. L. S. eventually said “Yes” and the play she wrote was The Devil to Pay, performed at Canterbury in 1939 and subsequently at His Majesty’s Theatre that same year.
[24 Newland Street
Witham
Essex]
TO VAL GIELGUD1
26 October 1938
Dear Mr Gielgud,
I have completed the draft of the Nativity play,2 and enclose a copy for you to look at. I expect trouble from Mr. Iremonger’s3 end, on the score of levity, and this will probably be another of the occasions when your liking for lively comedy will conflict with the official caution! In my first interview with Mr. Iremonger, he did not seem very sure whether he wanted the play to last forty minutes or sixty minutes; in any case, some cuts can be made, and if necessary we can dispense with the Prologue. I thought it advisable to keep remarks made by the sacred personages to the minimum; after all, in the circumstances, there was not very much for them to say.
If, by any chance, we succeed in getting the play through, you will see that a certain amount of music will need to be composed:4 (1) Melchior’s song, “High upon the holy tree”, this should be written in ballad style. (2) Song of the Legionaires: this is a marching song with one of those refrains, “Bread and cheese”, which go on and on in march time “till ready”. (3) Greek Gentleman’s song, “Golden Apollo”, this should be in the manner of an Elizabethan madrigal. (4) Jewish Gentleman’s song, “Adam and Eve”, this is one of those cumulative songs in the folk-song manner after the fashion of “The Tree in the Wood”, in which two lines are added in every verse. (5) Angels’ chorus, “Glory to God”, anything you like. (6) Our Lady’s carol presents no difficulties, being a plain carol melody.
I am looking forward to seeing you at four o’clock on Friday, and hope that by that time you and Mr. Iremonger will have got over the preliminary ground of the combat.
Yours very sincerely,
[Dorothy L. Sayers]
1 Val Gielgud (1900–1981), producer, brother of the actor Sir John Gielgud. This is the beginning of a happy collaboration with D. L. S. which led ultimately to his triumphant production of The Man Born to be King.
2 He That Should Come, broadcast on Christmas Day 1938 and first published in Four Sacred Plays, Gollancz, November 1939.
3 See following letter.
4 It was composed by Robert Chignell (1882–1939), who composed operas and many songs.
Portrait of Val Gielgud by Atherton Fleming
[24 Newland Street
Witham
Essex]
TO REV. DR F. A. IREMONGER1
26 October 1938
Dear Mr. Iremonger,
I enclose the Nativity play; it is probable that you will think it is too long, but no doubt we can make some cuts here and there, and if necessary, dispense with the Prologue.
I have treated the story realistically, and therefore, as I said over the telephone, there may be trouble from the pious, who prefer religion and reality kept in separate compartments. I feel, myself, that it is of some importance to get people to realize that the Gospel story was enacted against an ordinary human and political background. This means, of course, that for the other characters concerned, the events appeared of very t
rifling importance, whatever they may seem to us now. I have tried to sketch in the complicated political background in Judaea, and to make it plain that what was expected of the Messiah was that he should be a military dictator. The idea of a spiritual kingdom was, after all, not hammered into the minds, even of the Disciples, until after the Ascension, if the first chapter of Acts is to be trusted.
I shall be seeing Mr. Gielgud on Friday at four o’clock, and hope you will be able to join us. …
Trusting your bronchitis is better,
Yours sincerely,
[Dorothy L. Sayers]