The History of the Ginger Man

by J. P. Donleavy

  Dear Donleavy,

  From a clipping of the Publishers’ Circular, October 13th 1956 I see that you have decided to go ahead with an English edition of The Ginger Man.

  If this project is not abandoned immediately, I shall have to take legal action to prevent publication and to obtain adequate damages.

  Sincerely yours,

  M. Girodias

  Registered

  A similar and longer letter from Girodias was also to arrive at Neville Spearman’s. And I was to find in the years to come that often as not two publishers in conflict would, if they could, fast make the author the scapegoat in between. But this possibility did not now seem to present itself between Girodias and Armstrong.

  THE OLYMPIA PRESS

  October 26th 1956

  Neville Spearman, Publishers,

  10 Fitzroy Street,

  London W.1.

  Dear Sirs,

  From the October 13th issue of the Publishers’ Circular we learn that you intend to publish a cut version of J. P. Donleavy’s The Ginger Man.

  We must remind you of the visit of one of your directors to this office some months ago to enquire about our intentions concerning this book. At that time we stated clearly that as the original publishers and owners of the English-language world rights, we were not prepared to consider sharing those rights with any other publisher as long as our own edition was not exhausted.

  In any exchange of correspondence with Mr. Donleavy we have again expounded our position on this, to us, extremely important subject. We are shocked, therefore, to learn that you and Mr. Donleavy have persisted with this project — no doubt founding your decision on the belief that our peculiar position would prevent us from taking legal steps against you.

  We must state once more and emphatically that we do not intend to be imposed upon by piratical methods, but will defend our own good right in a most energetic manner.

  Of course we are at your disposal to give you in case you pretend not to be acquainted with Mr. Donleavy’s contract with us, all the necessary information concerning our legal rights.

  Yours sincerely,

  M. Girodias

  MG/mw

  Registered

  It seemed that the time was now fast approaching when we might have to consult with lawyers. But I simply did not have the wherewithal to do so. But meanwhile, first on November 3, Neville Armstrong took up the cudgel and sent off his own salvo toward Paris.

  NEVILLE SPEARMAN LTD.

  3rd November 1956

  M. Girodias,

  Olympia Press,

  6 rue de Nesle,

  Paris 6e, France.

  Dear M. Girodias,

  I have your registered letter and I am at a loss to understand its meaning or why it has been written. You know very well that you do not hold the rights in Donleavy’s The Ginger Man that you claim and I am amazed that you have the audacity to make such a frivolous claim and use the threatening words that you have written. What is the motive behind this?

  Earlier in the year, as you say, my fellow-director came to see you while in Paris. He never approached you with the request that we might be allowed to publish an English edition in England of this title. Why the hell should he? We had already signed the contract with the author and previously took legal advice that it would be in order to do so.

  Let’s get this quite straight. Your edition has already been on the French market 18 months: further, the book in its French edition would not, I imagine, be admissible into this country in view of certain passages (which we have deleted) and therefore you have no claim on this point of implied competition.

  Kindly be good enough to drop, therefore, these spurious claims, particularly in view of the fact that I am informed that you already owe the author a considerable sum of money on the French edition. I cannot believe that you wish to be involved in litigation to substantiate your claims.

  All further correspondence on this matter will be passed to my legal advisers who are already informed on this matter and who will take the appropriate action necessary.

  Yours truly,

  Neville Armstrong

  CC. J. P. Donleavy

  There could be little doubt that Armstrong took comfort from the nature of Girodias’s overall business and his removed position in France. But this gentleman with the bow tie was to be just as adamantly persevering as his letter more than amply pretended. However, Girodias could certainly be portrayed in a British court as the depraved devil incarnate to the British establishment of magistrates, police commissioners, customs officers and the queen. Not to mention the British public at large, and to such as The People newspaper, who could now have, at last, a heyday, were they still interested. And to extol that Girodias was the happy source of tomes concerning bottoms being thrashed by bishops and perhaps could be thought of as a beneficial influence in the spread of such cautionary tales. But I did not take such comfort, nor did I underestimate my adversary, knowing for a start that Girodias was perhaps laying claim to a work he might have now found he wanted to boast about having published and discovered had serious commercial prospects.

  THE OLYMPIA PRESS

  November 6th 1956

  Mr. Neville Armstrong,

  Neville Spearman Ltd.,

  10 Fitzroy Street,

  London, W1.

  Dear Mr. Armstrong,

  I think it is unnecessary to answer in detail your letter of November 3rd concerning J. P. Donleavy’s The Ginger Man since you yourself propose it is preferable that all further discussion of this extremely disagreeable affair be carried out through the offices of our lawyers.

  Will you please, therefore, make known the name and address of your legal counsel so that he can be contacted by mine?

  Meanwhile I wish to make quite clear the following: 1) When your fellow-director visited me in Paris he did ask whether we would let you produce an edition of The Ginger Man and I very definitely replied that we could not grant such an authorization; 2) We own the world English rights to The Ginger Man. How can you presume we do not with no knowledge of what is in our files?; 3) Concerning any disagreements between Mr. Donleavy and myself, I would be very pleased to dispense with your comments and intervention, as, once again, you can only know one side of the picture; 4) veiled threats contained in your letter, as well as rather unseemly insolence, will not influence me toward changing my absolute determination to straighten out this business quite completely.

  In conclusion, I would advise you most earnestly to take the advice of your legal counsel before going any further, either with your threats or with the production of the book.

  Sincerely yours,

  M. Girodias

  MG/mw

  Registered

  A registered copy of this letter is being sent to Mr. Donleavy.

  (MG)

  There was now in Girodias’s letters for the first time a nuance showing of serious regard in even referring to me as Mr. Donleavy. But even in invoking the use of lawyers and such words as “unseemly insolence‚” Girodias’s reply again seemed to possess a curious underlying reasonableness. Which was not about to last for long. For on November 13, we heard from his lawyers, Rubinstein, Nash and Company, with an address in Gray’s Inn who “as a matter of courtesy” were informing that if after a perusal of papers and considering the matter, and should the circumstances justify, they would advise their clients to issue proceedings.

  The legal chess game had begun. And except for the countdown to publication now twenty-nine days away, I was not to know that there was to be oodles and oodles of time to stretch strategies to the limit. And in many lands also keep numerous lawyers far from the poor-house. But paramount now, above all things, and an absolute matter of life and death and especially my life, was that the book, no matter what, get out into publication, and be itself the answer to Girodias. I had no money for lawyers. And with nothing else to back me up except my wits and my ability to quick-spot wile in others, I awaited the worst. Noting th
at Girodias did not in his August 24 letter flatly deny any agreement over the British rights but waited until his letter of September 8 to do so.

  But what was to amaze me now most was my satisfaction at having at last made Girodias the enemy I meant and knew him to be. And also that the work The Ginger Man could be, like my own name, real, and both could become known for what they were. I could also dimly regard I’d achieved a sense of redress in that this publisher in Paris had had to come to the realization and recognize that The Ginger Man, as a so-called literary work, had commercial worth. But which, to my mind, he had absolutely no right to, whatsoever. He had instead incited a wrath in his budding author adversary that would be carefully and forever concealed.

  And which

  Even in total victory

  Would never be

  Undone

  41

  AS THE CHILLIER DAYS of middle November 1956 came to London and the ladies’ footsteps on their way to the laundry at the end of Broughton Road sounded dimmer through a closed window, the front door letterbox flapped more frequently and sounded louder as I now came to unpleasantly anticipate the legal correspondence arriving.

  Armstrong had sent the Olympia Press matters for advice to his solicitors, with whom he’d now spoken and who had counseled that having seen the relative papers and copies of letters, that we indeed had a very poor case and that the contract consisting of an exchange of letters was enforceable by injunction and the only thing to do was to negotiate as best as one could and get Girodias to agree to a compromise and share of royalties and by so doing stop them issuing an injunction against publication scheduled for December 7, 1956.

  A four P.M., November 16, meeting was now made with Norman Shine of Samuels and Shine. I met Armstrong beforehand at his office and we both strolled toward Goodge Street but were early for our meeting. Neville proposing we repair meanwhile to have a cup of tea. It was to be my first social entertainment in England by a British publisher. And so inside a little tea kiosk full of cigarette smoke and serving fish and chips and populated by the local road sweepers, lorry drivers and shop assistants, we stood at the counter. This was a dramatic change from Paris’s best restaurants. And despite my being a lowly resident of Fulham, I indeed might never have actually been in such a place before. Armstrong asking me would I also like a cup of tea and I said yes, I would like one weak without sugar and a tiny bit of milk, and Armstrong, taking command, ordered tea for us both. The brew served up in plain white cups and saucers and placed on the wooden counter by the aproned cook at four pence per cup. Making a total of eight pence. Neville dug into his pocket and drew out a half crown coin, which then was one eighth of a pound sterling and which he looked at as it lay heads up in the middle of his outheld palm.

  “Mike, you don’t happen, do you, to have any small change on you. I don’t want to break into a half crown.”

  Although completely stunned, I reached into my own pocket and fetched out a six pence and few pennies and, totaling them to eight pence, placed the sum down on the counter. I somehow imagined that Neville must have been an army commissary sergeant major in the war and was carefully conscious of comestibles. But in fact I had no idea as to what role he had played in the Second World conflict. But one thing was imminently clear, this was no flamboyantly spendthrift publisher who put on airs and was out to impress authors. And which in the case of British publishers even in further years was not to greatly change.

  At Gerald Samuels and Shine’s office, Norman Shine appeared to be quite enthusiastic with dealing with our case. With this rugged, young and surprisingly handsome gentleman looking more like a rugby player than a lawyer. Although it seemed it might not be the usual type of literary litigation in which he got engaged, I nevertheless got an impression of confidence as he reviewed the papers, examining all scrupulously, even down to the loops of Girodias’s signature. And then even taking up one of Girodias’s letters and holding it up to the light to examine it for its watermark and quality of paper and both passing muster. He laughed as he advised how it was often a grave mistake to ever answer letters from anybody, and especially those sent by a lawyer. Then Shine observed the serious mien upon my face, which in fact, disguised vengeance and the disbelief that I was actually, for the first time in my life, going to be sued and knowing that deep down in my soul, come what may, I would fight to the death.

  “You mustn’t be so glum, Mr. Donleavy. I’ve painted the worst possible picture of yours and Neville’s position. I’ve read this Ginger Man of yours, and I must confess I enjoyed it and thought it a very good book. Your adversary in Paris has a certain grandiloquence with which, it already appears, he has slandered Mr. Armstrong. And he has retained a prominent law firm, but you mustn’t be intimidated. I’m just a poor Jewish boy from the East End of London who’s come up the hard way, but more times than you’d imagine, we end up kicking the hell out of these bigger West End law firms and these public school boys who operate them.”

  Throughout the conference with Norman Shine, Neville Armstrong mostly remained quiet and businesslike and very much putting himself in the hands of his solicitor. However, these comments of Shine’s were among the first unsolicited reactions to The Ginger Man and at least provided me with one of the very few times since the difficulties had begun that I could take comfort from someone’s words, and the other unbelievable thing that was happening, that at long last I now actually had people reading and enjoying the book, and knowing who the author was, albeit all members of the law profession. And Norman Shine, Neville Armstrong’s and now also my solicitor, did, in spite of all the dire prospects indicating that Girodias could hang us, duly dispatch a letter, and in the good way of protecting his clients.

  GERALD SAMUELS & SHINE

  19th November 1956

  Rubinstein, Nash & Co.,

  Gray’s Inn,

  WC1.

  Dear Sirs,

  The Ginger Man

  We confirm our several telephone conversations in respect of the book entitled The Ginger Man. We have viewed the long correspondence between the Parties, and are by no means certain that there is a contract between the Parties in which your clients receive the English printing and publishing rights. We have not had the opportunity of obtaining full instructions from the Author, and are dealing, at the moment, merely with the correspondence. However, our clients Neville Spearman Limited have no desire to litigate on this matter, and if some sort of amicable arrangement can be come to between the Parties, we would consider this possibility in the interests of all.

  We await to hear from you at the earliest possible moment, as our clients wish to proceed with the proposed publication.

  Yours faithfully

  Samuels & Shine

  Bleak now indeed were prospects and gloom blackening ever blacker by the hour. Rubinstein and Nash asked for a copy of the galley proofs. However, along with such advice, adverse as it was from Norman Shine, Armstrong, and clearly seeming able to sustain optimism in spite of the overwhelming pessimism of our present case, was, perky as ever, in the midst of all, still gung ho toward publication, and even imploring me to go ahead and sign the Barney Rosset agreement with the “please be an angel.” He also told me not to be too worried, although he feared that financially I looked like being the loser to Girodias, but that half a loaf was better than none.

  Indeed the drums toward publication were beating furiously now. The dust jacket orange and blue. And Dangerfield portrayed on a couch with a bottle. Then of all amazing things, a photograph taken by Murray Sayle was there for all to see on the jacket flap. Advance copies were in hand with Arland Ussher’s quite marvelously erudite introduction, which Armstrong believed should, by its scholarship, stay the hand of the public prosecutor. With bulk supplies on their way and the book being subscribed in London, the review copies were being sent out. I also got the author’s six free copies, in two of which the pages were blank here and there throughout the volume. And now as we were continuing to get closer day by
day and hour by hour to publication, we were inadvertently helped by Girodias’s solicitor, who, having other business there, was going to Paris and would also be seeing Girodias. However, in giving us more time, it still did not remove the threat of an injunction hanging over us, which not only could stop all distribution of the book but have all the copies already shipped, recalled.

  The month of November was coming to a close. And to achieve, as Shine had suggested in his letter, some sort of amicable arrangement, a meeting was arranged with Girodias’s solicitors. The fact of settlement being suggested in the letter of November 19 had, it seemed, introduced a degree of leisure to the proceedings. But with the clear unpleasant prospect of Girodias imposing terms for settlement, which one had no encouragement to believe would be reasonable. But we did at least now have again the luck of a further postponement of this meeting. I was beginning to learn something most important in the matter of law, that provided one was the defendant, a delay could be something to be looked forward to. And in this case, ever so infinitesimally increasing the chance that publication day, now less than a week away, might still be achieved. It also increased the dubious comfort of thinking that literary editors and their various reviewers had got the book and were belting out paeans of praise on their typewriters. There was also a strange vague comfort taken from the fact that Girodias had chosen to be represented by a highly reputable firm of solicitors, distinguished for their probity, and to whom turpitude was an anathema. And who, in possession of seven telephone lines to Spearman’s one and my none, had also to be unhappily presumed, extremely expensive, a major consideration for me, as I might end up having to pay them.

  But now this end of November a new appointment was made with Rubinstein and Nash. The fatal meeting to be on a Friday at eleven A.M. at their offices in Gray’s Inn. I met Armstrong at his Fitzroy Street office to be driven with Norman Shine in Armstrong’s fairly upmarket car around to these offices located in a sedate terrace of old buildings standing in their somber wintry park under leafless elms. Rubinstein and Nash, with their prominent clients, especially in the world of arts and publishing, were reputed by their mere prominence and influence to be able by their intervention as lawyers often automatically to effect settlements. Their weight added to that of their clients, now to be imposed upon Neville Spearman Ltd. and myself. And here they were quite appropriately located in the Inns of Court, surrounded by trees and lawns, and these gray buildings were just as the place was named.