The Letters of T. S. Eliot, Volume 1: 1898-1922

by T. S. Eliot

  Yours affectionately,

  Tom.

 

  TO Leonard Woolf

  MS Princeton

  5 July 1922

  9 Clarence Gate Gdns

  Dear Leonard,

  Thank you for your letter of the 3d. I am disappointed over the Tolstoi, and should still like to believe that I might have a few [of Tolstoi’s letters] to publish at least just before you published the lot as a book. Do you not think that there might be a few suitable for the review, at least by November 1st? My first number should be out by October 1st.

  Of course, failing these, and the Dostoevski plan, I should like to have the Stavrogine. Can you tell me (1) whether the version you would offer me would be the one you already showed me or the other (2) when your other version would appear (3) which is longer? I suppose that either version would occupy two numbers.

  Please thank Virginia for her title [‘In the Orchard’], which of course she will be at liberty to change; but I trust that will not be necessary. I do hope that Rodmell will be enough to set the doctors’ suspicions at rest; and tell her that when she can write again, I hope that this will be the first thing she will do.

  Yours

  T. S. Eliot

  Roger Fry has promised to get something done on his return.1

  1–Roger Fry, ‘Mallarmé’s “Herodiade”’, C. 1: 2 (Jan. 1923), 119–26.

  TO Ezra Pound

  MS Lilly

  9 July 1922

  9 Clarence Gate Gdns

  Caro Ezra,

  The title of the Review is The Criterion. This title was suggested by Vivien, as The London Review seemed colourless and perhaps misleading, and had just been accepted and approved; and your letter arrived as a most auspicious confirmation. I told Lady R. that you had suggested the same title as had been agreed upon two days before, and she was mightily pleased.

  Thanks also for your notes on the slave trade,1 which I am keeping by me, but don’t think it is quite the thing to make an impression in an early number – the meaning or implications being too subtle to strike the subscribing public. What about the article on Impressionism which you promised2 (no need to boost joyce as I am reprinting part of Larbaud’s essay3 as testimony that the Review approves of J. J.)? Are you to be relied upon to promise this by Nov. 1?

  About the ‘2Worlds’,4 please let me know about the organisers of it and who the probable star and second star or planetary contributors will be? Is it run and edited by women? Does it approve of the Baroness?

  I don’t ask for Cantos simply because I know you can get more money from the Dial, and I don’t want at present to use things which appear previously in the Dial, and it is difficult to arrange for simultaneous publication in a monthly and a quarterly. Otherwise they would be most particularly sought after.5

  I shall be glad to have a conversation with Berman6 if he arrives in this country.

  I am now waiting to hear whether Quinn has managed to screw Liveright down to a legal contract or not. I hear from other sources that Liveright is an excellent publisher if you have him pinned down by every legal written safeguard – and that he is quite merciless if you don’t. Quinn seemed quite willing, and I have had a very amiable letter from him.

  Do you recommend anybody in France for the Criterion? Also, have you come across anyone who is [at] all informed about Scandinavia? I am not anxious to get many French people for the first two numbers, more anxious to get other (foreign) nationalities: the French business is so usual (in London) that it doesn’t raise a quiver; the only name worth getting is Proust, whom I am fishing for. But later, yes, any French stuff that is really good no matter who signs it; after two or three numbers could perhaps even afford e.g. Picabia and Benda in the same number. Do you know where Benda is now?

  Until the next, if you answer at least some of my questions, O student of the Kama-Sutra […]7 grow fat and libidinous.

  Yours ever

  T.

  Have you ever heard of a man in England named Hogben,8in connexion with glands?

  Vivien is being treated (and the doctor seems to have supplied a very sensible regimen) for colitis, which she has a bad case of; but the doctor himself says that colitis is not a disease but a symptom, and that it may be a symptom of all sorts of more deep seated maladies, and there seems no reason why colitis also should not be a symptom of glandular trouble. Meanwhile she continues to take animal gland capsules thrice daily.

  1–Not found.

  2–EP responded: ‘On me demande l’histoire de l’impressionisme littéraire en Albion le perfide’ [‘I have been asked for a history of literary impressionism in perfidious Albion’]. See EP, ‘On Criticism in General’, C. 1: 2 (Jan. 1923), 143–56.

  3–Valery Larbaud, ‘The “Ulysses” of James Joyce’.

  4–There may have been plans to launch Samuel Roth’s magazine Two Worlds (New York), but it did not appear until Sept. 1925 (it ran for eight issues, until Sept. 1926).

  5–C. did in fact publish the next instalment of EP’s magnum opus, ‘Malatesta Cantos’, in July 1923.

  6–Dr Louis Berman (1893–1946), New York endocrinologist; author of The Glands Regulating Personality (1921). EP wrote about his glandular medicine in ‘The New Therapy’ (New Age, Mar. 1922). On 4 July, EP told Quinn: ‘Eliot has always been reserved about his domestic situation, so much so that I thought Mrs. E. had syph … Last time I saw him I got down to brass tacks, and find the girl really has a long complication of things, tuberculosis in infancy, supposed to have been cured. Symptoms, so far as I now see, point to pituitary trouble, Berman, author of that gland book, turned up here on Sunday, on his way to a medical conference in Edinburgh. I am sending him to Eliot, and hope he will get best gland specialists onto the job’ (Selected Letters of Ezra Pound to John Quinn, 1915–1924, ed. Timothy Materer).

  3–TSE has tried his hand at the Devanagari script for Ka-ma-Su-tra. His pencilled transcription is too faint to reproduce.

  8–Lancelot Hogben (1895–1975), biologist and writer.

  TO E. R. Curtius1

  TS Bonn

  9 July 1922

  9 Clarence Gate Gdns

  Sehr geehrter Herr!

  Ich gestatte mich, Ihnen zu schreiben, in der Hoffnung dass Sie mitarbeiten werden, an einer neuen Rundschau in London worauf ich Redakteur bin. Diese Rundschau wird erst im Monat Oktober erscheinen, und danach vierteljährlich.

  Ich wunsche, in dieser Rundschau das Werk der bedeutendsten Schriftsteller des Auslands neben dem Werk der besten englischen Schriftsteller[ n] vorzustellen. Der Charakter der Rundschau wird literarisch und international sein. Aus Frankreich und Spanien hat mein Bestreben schon guten Erfolg – z.B. Gomez de la Serna und A. Marichalar [Ich bin englischer Korrespondent der ‘Nouvelle Revue Française’. added in ink in margin] – aber ich hege hauptsächlich die Hoffnung, engere Beziehungen zwischen der englischen and der deutschen Literatur der Gegenwart zu verknüpfen. Mein Freund Hermann Hesse hat einige Beiträge gegeben; aber ich begehre vorzüglich auch Ihr [cancelled: es following Ihr] Werk auch in England bekannt zu machen.

  Darf ich sagen, dass ich schreibe, nicht nur wegen Ihrer Zelebrität, sondern weil ich Ihr ‘Literarische Wegbereiter des neuen Frankreichs’2 hoch schätze.

  Die Übersetzung wäre hier besorgt von jemand der deutsche sehr gut kann, viel besser als ich!

  Ich bewundere auch Ihren Aufsatz über Proust.3 Von Proust auch hoffe ich im nächsten Jahr etwas herauszugeben.

  Vorläufig können wir nur Pf. 10 für 5000 Wörter bezahlen, hoffentlich zu einem besseren Preis später. Vorläufig können wir nur Aufsätze um höchstens 5000 Wörter gebrauchen, vorzüglich kurzere.

  Ich kann versichern, Sie würden unter unseren Leser[n] eine sympathische und gebildete Audienz betreffen.

  Erlauben Sie mir zu hoffen an Ihre baldige und günstige Nachrichten; i
ch zeichne mich, mit vorzüglicher Hochachtung,

  T.S. Eliot

  Die Rundschau wird THE CRITERION heissen.4

  1–Ernst Robert Curtius (1886–1956), German scholar, literary critic and philologist; professor of German at Marburg University since 1920.

  2–Curtius, Die literarischen Wegbereiter des neuen Frankreich [‘Literary Precursors of the New France’] (1919).

  3–Curtius, ‘On the Style of Marcel Proust’, C. 2: 7 (Apr. 1924).

  1–Translation: Dear Sir, I am taking the liberty of writing to you, in the hope that you might take part in a new review in London of which I am editor. This journal will appear first in the month of October and then quarterly.

  I want in this review to place the work of the most important writers from abroad beside that of the best English writers. The character of the review will be literary and international. In France and Spain my attempts have had happy results – for example Gomez de la Serna and A. Marichalar – but my principal hope is to bring about closer relationships between contemporary English and German literature. My friend Herman Hesse has given me an essay; I would also very much like to make your work known in England.

  May I say that I am writing, not only on account of your fame, but because I particularly prize your Literary Precursors of the New France.

  The translation will be taken care of here by someone with good German, much better than mine!

  I wonder about your essay on Proust. Next year I also hope to publish something of Proust’s.

  For the moment, we are only able to pay a maximum of £10 per 5000 words, hopefully a better remuneration later. For the moment we can only use essays of up to 5000 words, preferably shorter.

  I can assure you that you will find a sympathetic and educated audience.

  Permit me to hope for a prompt and favourable response from you; I sign myself, with deepest respect, T. S. Eliot

  The review will be called The Criterion.

  TO Richard Aldington

  TS Texas

  10 July 1922

  9 Clarence Gate Gardens

  My dear Richard,

  Thank you very much for your letter1 and the article you have sent. I much appreciate the loyalty of your support and of which the present prompt contribution is only one of many evidences. I shall write to you about this article again.

  Thank you for recommending to me Flint, to whom I am writing. Do you know enough of the usual scale of payment to be able to suggest at what rate you think we should pay for translations, in view of the rate of £10 per 5000 words which we give for original contributions.

  As for French, of course you know I would rather have translations from you than from anybody.

  As for publication in America, we should raise no objection to subsequent publication there or indeed to simultaneous publication if the publication is simultaneous. The difficulty is in arranging simultaneous publication in a quarterly and in a weekly or monthly. We should like of course to build up an American circulation, but at present the rates of payment are so low that it would obviously be more than unreasonable to ask contributors not to use their contributions in America.

  In haste,

  Yours affectionately,

  Tom

  1–Not found.

  TO John Rodker

  TS Virginia

  10 July 1922

  9 Clarence Gate Gdns

  Dear Rodker,

  You will remember that some time ago I suggested that you should contribute to the new quarterly, a rubric on cinema and music halls. I have had to forego rubrics for the reason that the space at the present is so limited that I think that the Review will be much more effective if it consists of entirely signed articles. I therefore revert to another suggestion and ask if you will do a single article on the cinema which you thought would take about 3,000 words. I am trying to make up several numbers ahead as owing again to the limited space, it is rather difficult to fit in all the shapes and sizes of article. Therefore I should be very glad if you will do it for me as soon as you can and let me have it, so that I might use it for the first or second number.

  I hope that you still want to write it, and look forward to reading it with great interest.1

  Can you let me have it, do you think, by the 10th August?

  Yours,

  T. S. Eliot

  Starts October 1st.

  1–Rodker duly wrote a ‘Note on the Cinema’, but it was never to appear in C.

  TO Sydney Schiff

  MS BL

  11 July [1922]

  9 Clarence Gate Gdns

  My dear Sydney

  I have been waiting every day to hear from Proust, but have heard nothing. I am very disappointed. I must send in the copy for this first circular (there will be a fuller one in September) at once, so will you let me know if he has replied in either sense?

  Yours always affectionately

  Tom

  TO Richard Cobden-Sanderson

  TS Beinecke

  13 July 1922

  9 Clarence Gate Gdns

  Dear Cobden-Sanderson,

  I send you herewith the copy for the advance circular. The first thing is to get an estimate of the cost for one thousand, and I will get Lady Rothermere’s approval at once. I leave the formulation of the subscription form to you.

  The type of the specimen page which you submitted is so excellent that I think it would be a pity not to adopt the same type, or larger or smaller sizes of it to suit, throughout.

  That is one of the objections to the cover and also to the letter paper, which I return herewith. I have scribbled my objections on it. I think now that RED and black will look best, and the vertical type for the title as on the specimen page. Also, all of the lettering, except the title, should be much smaller, leaving much more white space.

  Sincerely

  T. S. Eliot

  TO F. S. Flint

  TS Texas

  13 July 1922

  9 Clarence Gate Gdns

  My dear Flint,

  I am starting in the autumn for Lady Rothermere, a new quarterly review toward which Richard Aldington is giving me a good deal of help. (It will not, I may say, be an illustrated or art quarterly, but will consist of rather long essays, chiefly literary and critical). I am intending to include a larger proportion of foreign writers than is found in any of the reviews in existence, and in this respect Richard tells me that you can, if you will, be of the greatest use. It is very difficult, as you know, to find people who both know foreign languages well and have literary merit and knowledge of English. I want if possible, not to have to have translations done by ordinary hacks but by men of letters. As our rates of payment must at present be low – £10 per 5,000 words – so we can only offer at present the usual rate of 15/-per 1,000 words to translators. But I set great store on having translations done by the right people.

  Will you undertake a certain amount, or as much as you can do, of this work? There will not after all be very much, as the paper is a quarterly; and I think that the material to be translated will be such as you would find interesting. I have at the moment two things which I want to be in the first number: an essay in Spanish by Ramón Gómez de la Serna,1 and an essay in German by Hermann Hesse.2 Both of these are very good people indeed, and have the additional interest of being quite unknown in this country; and if you will undertake this piece of work I should like very much to send you the manuscripts at once.

  I need hardly say that I hope you will sometimes be tempted to send in original contributions as well.

  Yours truly,

  T. S. Eliot

  1–Ramón Gómez de la Serna (1883–1963), avant-garde novelist, critic, dramatist and aphorist. ‘From “The New Museum”’, C. 1: 2 (Jan. 1923), was translated by Flint.

  2–Hesse, ‘Recent German Poetry’.

  TO Richard Aldington

  TS Texas

  13 July 1922

  9 Clarence Gate Gdns

  My dear Richard,


  Thank you again for the information about translators’ rates. I have written to Flint.

  I have undertaken to reprint the Ulysses section of Larbaud’s Joyce. The reprinting of anything that has already appeared in a review is of course against my principles, but I thought that in this case as the section in question is not very long, I might well make an exception.

  Would you agree to translate it for me?

  The first number will appear either the 1st or the 15th of October, so that you can arrange for publication in America any time after the middle of that month. I do not want you to think that I do not value your article or that I am excessively captious about contributions! If I should seem so you will realise that it is because the success of this review, at least from the point of view of its contents, if not from that of circulation, means a very serious stake to me. You know that I have no persecution mania, but that I am quite aware how obnoxious I am to perhaps the larger part of the literary world of London and that there will be a great many jackals swarming about waiting for my bones. If this falls flat I shall not only have gained nothing but will have lost immensely in prestige and usefulness and shall have to retire to obscurity or Paris like Ezra. But you know all this as well as I do.