A Life in Letters

by George Orwell

  My novel's finished, which is why I'm writing in pen, as it is being typed. I've heard from Richard [Rees], who's at Perpignan & sounds pretty exhausted, as well he may be. I wonder if we can possibly get 5 years of respite before the next war. It doesn't look like it. Anyway, thank God for a roof over one's head & a patch of potatoes when the fun begins. I hope Muriel's mating went through. It is a most unedifying spectacle, by the way, if you happened to watch it. Love to Mary & Peter. Eileen sends love. Don't write because it would cross us. If any occasion to write, write to the Greenwich address.

  Yours

  Eric

  P.S. Did my rhubarb come up, I wonder? I had a lot, & then last year the frost buggered it up. I don't know whether it survives that or not.

  [XI, 539, pp. 344-5; handwritten]

  To Lydia Jackson*

  [30 March 1939]

  postcard1

  Dear Lydia,

  I knocked at the door of your flat & was very disappointed not to find you at home. I gathered from the hall porter that you weren't actually away from London. I've got tomorrow to go down & see my parents for the weekend, but hope to see you when I get back, about Tuesday. Meanwhile if clever I may be able to look in for an hour tomorrow morning, so try & stay at home in the morning will you?

  Love

  Eric

  [XI, 542A, p. 348; handwritten]

  1.The postcard was of 'A Cafe in the Faubourg Montmartre' by Edgar Degas. It, and the next item, have been dated by reference to adjacent letters. This, and the other letters, are not quite accurately reproduced in her A Russian's England, pp. 430-31.

  To Lydia Jackson*

  Friday [31 March 1939]

  36 High Street

  Southwold

  Dear Lydia,

  You were mean not to stay at home this morning like I asked you. But perhaps you couldn't. I rang up 3 times. Are you angry with me? I did write to you twice from Morocco & I don't think you wrote to me. But listen. I am coming back to town Monday or Tuesday, & Eileen is going to stay down here a bit longer. I shall have to be in town several days to see to various things, so we can arrange to meet--unless you don't want to. I'll ring up.

  Yours ever.

  Eric.

  [XI, 542B, p. 348; handwritten]

  To Leonard Moore*

  25 April 1939

  The Stores

  Wallington

  Dear Mr Moore,

  Many thanks for your letter. I am afraid you must be very overworked, with Miss Perriam away1 and having been unwell yourself, and I am sorry to trouble you with all this stuff.

  I thought Gollancz might show fight. The book is, of course, only a novel and more or less unpolitical, so far as it is possible for a book to be that nowadays, but its general tendency is pacifist, and there is one chapter (Chapter i. of Part III--I suppose you haven't seen the manuscript) which describes a Left Book Club meeting and which Gollancz no doubt objects to. I also think it perfectly conceivable that some of Gollancz's Communist friends have been at him to drop me and any other politically doubtful writers who are on his list. You know how this political racket works, and of course it is a bit difficult for Gollancz, or at any rate Lawrence and Wishart, to be publishing books proving that persons like myself are German spies and at the same time to be publishing my own books. Meanwhile how does our contract stand? I didn't see our last contract, which you may remember was drawn up while I was in Spain, but I understood from my wife that Gollancz undertook to publish my next three works of fiction and pay PS100 in advance on each. He has also had this book in his advance lists three times, owing to the delay caused by my illness. But at the same time I think it would be much better not to pin him down to his contract if he is really reluctant to publish the book. To begin with he has treated me very well and I don't want to make unpleasantness for him, and secondly if he really objects to the book he could hardly be expected to push it once published. It might be better to have a quite frank explanation with him. If we are to go to another publisher, whom do you recommend? I suppose it would be better to go to one of the big ones if they will have me, but meanwhile there will I suppose be considerable delays. It is all a great nuisance. I have earned little or no money since last spring and am infernally hard up and in debt, and I was looking to this book to see me through the summer while I get on with my next. I am also not completely decided about my next book, I have ideas for two books which I had thought of writing simultaneously, and if we are going to change publishers it might be necessary to talk that over too. So perhaps the sooner this business is settled the better. I am sorry to be such a nuisance.

  I hope you are quite over your flu. I am very well again and have been putting in some strenuous gardening to make up for lost time. My wife sends all the best.

  Yours sincerely

  Eric Blair

  P.S. [at top of letter] If G. wants alterations in the book, I am willing to make the usual minor changes to avoid libel actions, but not structural alterations.

  [XI, 546, pp. 352-3; handwritten]

  1.Miss Periam was Moore's secretary and had been ill for some months (see 28.11.38, n. 7).

  To Leonard Moore*

  [4 July 1939?]1

  The Stores

  Wallington

  Dear Mr. Moore,

  Many thanks for your letter. I called at your office yesterday and was sorry not to find you there. I am terribly behind with my book of essays2 which I had hoped to finish by September at latest. These infernal illnesses have of course wasted months of time. Also I am sorry to tell you my father has just died. I was with the poor old man for the last week of his life, and then there was the funeral etc., etc., all terribly upsetting and depressing. However, he was 82 and had been very active till he was over 80, so he had had a good life, and I am very glad that latterly he had not been so disappointed in me as before. Curiously enough his last moment of consciousness was hearing that review I had in the Sunday Times. He heard about it and wanted to see it, and my sister took it in and read it to him, and a little later he lost consciousness for the last time.

  About the book. I shan't be starting my novel till after I have done the book of essays, and unless something upsets my plans I intend doing next a long novel, really the first part of an enormous novel, a sort of saga(!) which will have to be published in three parts. I think I ought to finish the book of essays in October, but the novel will take a long time and even barring wars, illnesses etc. isn't likely to be finished before the late summer of 1940. Those at any rate are my plans. As to the book of essays, I don't know whether Gollancz will want them. They may be a bit off his track, and as they are sort of literary-sociological essays they touch at places on politics, on which I am certain to say things he wouldn't approve of. The subjects are Charles Dickens, boys' weekly papers (the Gem, Magnet etc.), and Henry Miller, the American novelist. I am finishing the rough draft of the Dickens one now, but the others probably won't take so long. I should say it will be a short book, 50-60 thousand words. I don't know whether this is at all the kind of thing to interest Gollancz, but if he wants to have the first refusal that is up to him and you. If he wants to take a chance on the book and put it in his lists I will think of a title, but I can't send a specimen, as it is all rather in a mess as yet.

  I see Coming up for Air has gone into a second edition, so I suppose it's doing fairly well. It had some wonderful reviews, especially from James Agate. The Frenchwoman3 who was translating Homage to Catalonia has finished it and is hawking it round various publishers, always unsuccessfully, as people are fed up with books on the Spanish war, which well they may be. She has an idea however that she may be able to induce someone to publish it or part of it unpaid. But she is afraid Warburg will kick against this, as he apparently did over some book of Freda Utley's.4 In case of this coming to anything, I suppose we can get Warburg to agree.5 It's always a bit of an advert., and in any case one never gets much out of a French publisher. Approposdeg of this, can you tell me what if anyt
hing ever came of that Burmese translation of Burmese Days which those people wrote to me about? It was sometime last year.6

  I hope all goes well. My wife sends all the best.

  Yours sincerely

  Eric Blair

  [XI, 555, pp. 365-6; typewritten]

  1.This letter is dated from its receipt in Moore's office; Orwell incorrectly dated it the 14th.

  2.Inside the Whale.

  3.Yvonne Davet*.

  4.Presumably Japan's Gamble in China, mentioned in Orwell's letter to Yvonne Davet 19 June 1939.

  5.From an annotation to this letter made in Moore's office, it appears that Warburg agreed to permit this for a 'Nominal fee of PS1.'

  6.Nothing came of the proposal, however it was 'published' in a pirated photocopied version of the Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics edition in the late 1990s. It could be bought on the approach to the Kuthodaw Pagoda for 600 Kyats (about US $2) in 1999.

  To Leonard Moore*

  4 August 1939

  The Stores

  Wallington

  Dear Mr Moore,

  Naturally I'm delighted about the Albatross business.1 It was very clever of you to work it. I've always wanted to crash one of those continental editions. English people abroad always read the few English books they can get hold of with such attention that I'm sure it's the best kind of publicity.

  Of course I've no objection to the alterations they want to make, but in two of the four cases I've suggested substituting another phrase instead of just leaving a blank. Of course they can do as they prefer, but in these two cases I felt that simply to cut the phrase out without inserting another would upset the balance of the paragraph. Also as they're going to set up the type anew they might correct two misprints which I let through. I've made notes on all this on the attached, and perhaps you could explain to them.

  Yours

  Eric Blair

  [XI, 561, pp. 384-5; typewritten]

  1.The Albatross Modern Continental Library was a paperback series of books in English put out by John Holroyd-Reece (born Johann Herman Riess) for distribution on the Continent. Most were sold in Germany. Holroyd-Reece also later took over the Tauchnitz series. The entry records that the contract was between Orwell and The Albatross Verlag G.m.b.H. and was dated 31 August 1939. It stipulated that the book was to be issued no later than August 1940. Although the publishing house was German, the contract was issued from 12 rue Chanoinesse, Paris.

  To Leonard Moore*

  6 October 1939

  The Stores

  Wallington

  Dear Mr Moore,

  Can you tell me whether there is any channel through which one can find out the circulations of weekly papers? As I think I told you, one of the essays in the book I am doing deals with the boys' twopenny weeklies of the type of the Gem, Wizard etc, and I should like to know their circulations, but don't quite know how to find them out. I suppose if you write and ask the editor he won't necessarily tell you? I have a dozen papers on my list, and should be greatly obliged if you could help me to find this out.

  My wife has already got a job in a government office.1 I have so far failed to do so. I shall try again later, but for the time being I am staying here to finish the book 2 and get our garden into trim for the winter, as I dare say we shall be glad of all the spuds we can lay hands on next year. The book should be finished some time in November. It ought to have been done already, but of course this war put me right off my stride for some weeks.

  Yours

  Eric A Blair

  [XI, 572, pp. 410-1; typewritten]

  1.Eileen was working in the Censorship Department, War Office, Whitehall; see Crick, p. 382.

  2.Inside the Whale, the book of essays described in a letter to Leonard Moore, 4.7.39.

  To Leonard Moore*

  Friday [8 December 1939]

  The Stores

  Wallington

  Dear Mr Moore,

  I have finished my book (the book of essays--the title is Inside the Whale) and have typed most of it but my wife is typing another portion in London. Meanwhile Cyril Connolly* and Stephen Spender*, who as perhaps you know are starting a new monthly called Horizon want to see the Ms. in case they would like to print one of the essays in their paper.1 I don't know if any of them are really suitable for this, but if they do wish to use one of them, would that be all right with the publisher? Could one arrange things? As you may remember Gollancz wanted to see the book but whether he'll publish it I don't know, as there is at any rate one passage which politically won't appeal to him.2 If Gollancz refuses it, what about trying Warburg again? I met him a little while back and he was very anxious to have my next non-fiction book, so perhaps we might get a good offer out of him for this, though no doubt it would be better to get the money in advance if possible. I am arranging with Connolly to keep the Ms. only a few days. I should think it would be best not to say anything to any publisher about this beforehand, because if Connolly and Co. don't want any of it, which they well may not, it might prejudice him against the book.

  Do you know what has happened to the Albatross people? 3 You may remember we signed up a contract with them for Coming Up for Air just before war broke out. Have they gone west, I wonder?

  Yours sincerely

  Eric Blair

  [XI, 581, pp. 422-3; typewritten]

  1.Inside the Whale consisted of the essay with that title, 'Charles Dickens,' and 'Boys' Weeklies'. An abridged version of the last was published in Horizon the same month as the book's publication, March 1940.

  2.In fact, Inside the Whale appealed greatly to Victor Gollancz, who did publish it. He wrote to Orwell on 1 January 1940 (misdated 1939) to express his delight: 'It is, if I may say so, first rate.' He was in complete sympathy with Orwell's general political point of view, 'though I fight against pessimism'. He suggested that the only thing worth doing was 'to try to find some way of reconciling the inevitable totalitarian economics with individual freedom'. Finally, he asked Orwell whether he could lend him a copy of Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer, of which he had not heard. Exactly four weeks after Gollancz wrote, Orwell returned to him the page proofs of Inside the Whale. The collection of essays was published on 11 March 1940.

  3.Although Albatross and Tauchnitz were German firms, the contract Orwell signed was from their Paris office. (See 4.8.39.) William B. Todd and Ann Bowden in their Tauchnitz International Editions in English record a document in the Albatross archive that notes that the publisher still hoped in 1940 to publish Coming Up for Air. After Paris was occupied by the Germans, 14 June 1940, a decree was issued forbidding the sale of British books first published after 1870 (Todd and Bowden, item 5365), and that finally ended Orwell's hopes for an Albatross edition.

  To Victor Gollancz*

  8 January 1940

  The Stores

  Wallington

  Dear Mr Gollancz,

  I cannot at this moment lend you Tropic of Cancer, because my copy has been seized. While I was writing my last book two detectives suddenly arrived at my house with orders from the public prosecutor to seize all books which I had 'received through the post'. A letter of mine addressed to the Obelisk Press had been seized and opened in the post. The police were only carrying out orders and were very nice about it, and even the public prosecutor wrote and said that he understood that as a writer I might have a need for books which it was illegal to possess. On these grounds he sent me back certain books, eg. Lady Chatterley's Lover, but it appears that Miller's books have not been in print long enough to have become respectable. However, I know that Cyril Connolly has a copy of Tropic of Cancer. He is down with flu at present, but when I can get in touch with him again I will borrow the book and pass it on to you.

  As to your remarks on my book. I am glad you liked it. You are perhaps right in thinking I am over-pessimistic. It is quite possible that freedom of thought etc. may survive in an economically totalitarian society. We can't tell until a collectivised economy has been tried out in a
western country. What worries me at present is the uncertainty as to whether the ordinary people in countries like England grasp the difference between democracy and despotism well enough to want to defend their liberties. One can't tell until they see themselves menaced in some quite unmistakeable manner. The intellectuals who are at present pointing out that democracy and fascism are the same thing etc. depress me horribly. However, perhaps when the pinch comes the common people will turn out to be more intelligent than the clever ones. I certainly hope so.

  Yours sincerely

  Eric Blair

  [XII, 583, p. 5; typewritten]

  To Geoffrey Gorer*

  10 January 1940

  The Stores

  Wallington

  Dear Geoffrey,

  It seems an age since I saw you or heard from you. I wonder what hemisphere you are in at this moment, but anyway I'll send this to Highgate trusting it'll be forwarded. I rang you up at about the beginning of the war & your brother answered & said you were in America.

  We got back from Morocco in the Spring & I began on another book, then I'm sorry to say my father died, all very painful & upsetting but I was glad when the poor old man went because he was 82 & had suffered a lot his last few months. Then I got going on the book again & then the war threw me out of my stride, so in the end a very short book that was meant to take 4 months took me 6 or 7. It ought to come out in March & I think parts of it might interest you. I have so far completely failed to serve HM. government in any capacity, though I want to, because it seems to me that now we are in this bloody war we have got to win it & I would like to lend a hand. They won't have me in the army, at any rate at present, because of my lungs. Eileen has got a job in a government department, which as usual she got by knowing somebody who knew somebody, etc., etc. I also want a job because I want to lay off writing for a bit, I feel I have written myself out & ought to lie fallow. I am sort of incubating an enormous novel, the family saga sort of thing, only I don't want to begin it before I'm all set. It is frightfully bad for one, this feeling of the publisher's winged chariot hurrying near 1 all the time. Have you seen the new monthly magazine, Horizon, that Cyril Connolly & Stephen Spender are running? They are trying to get away from the bloody political squirrel-cage, & about time too. I saw Gollancz recently & he is furious with his Communist late-friends, owing to their lies etc., so perhaps the Left Book Club may become quite a power for good again, if it manages to survive. I believe there is going to be a bad paper-shortage some time next year & the number of books published will be curtailed. At the moment however the publishers are rather chirpy because the war makes people read more. Let me know how you are getting on, whether you're in England or when you're likely to be, & if you can indicate any wire I could pull to get a job, of course I'd be obliged. Eileen would send love if she were here.