A Life in Letters

by George Orwell

  2.B.A.O.R.: British Army of the Rhine.

  3.Konstanty A. Jelenski was the son of a Polish diplomat. In April 1946 he held the rank of lieutenant. He was familiar with the English literary scene and later achieved some prominence in Paris, where he contributed to Epreuves and the important Polish monthly Kultura, which published four of Orwell's articles in Polish. The first three were translated by Teresa Jelenska and the fourth by Teresa Skorzewska all 'with the author's authority'. Jelenski died about 1989.

  4.Mme Teresa Jelenska, Konstanty Jelenski's mother, was the intermediary who on Szewczenko's behalf broached with Orwell the possibility of the publication of a Ukrainian translation. No correspondence between her and Orwell has been traced. Mme Jelenska made a translation into Polish of Animal Farm and that, with illustrations by Wojciecha Jastrzebowskiego, was published by the League of Poles Abroad, London, under the title Folwark Zwierzecy, in December 1946.

  5.The translation into Ukrainian was published in Munich in November 1947; the translator's name was given as Ivan Cherniatync'kyi and the title as Kolhosp Tvaryn. It was intended for displaced persons. Orwell wrote a special Preface for this translation and it is printed as Appendix II of the Complete Works and Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics editions.

  To Andrew S. F. Gow*

  13 April 1946

  27B Canonbury Square Islington N 1

  Dear Mr Gow,

  It was very nice to hear from you after all this time. I heard almost simultaneously from M. D. Hill,1 who wrote to me approposdeg of the Gem and Magnet 2 and George Lyttelton,3 who is now editing a series for Home & Van Thal and wanted me to write something. To my sorrow I had to say no, at any rate for the time being, because I am just on the point of dropping all journalism and other casual work for six months. I may start another book during the period, but I have resolved to stop hackwork for a bit, because I have been writing three articles a week for two years and for two years previous to that had been in the BBC where I wrote enough rubbish (news commentaries and so on) to fill a shelf of books. I have become more and more like a sucked orange and I am going to get out of it and go to Scotland for six months to a place where there is no telephone and not much of a postal service.

  A lot has happened to me since I saw you. I am very sorry to say I lost my wife a little over a year ago, very suddenly and unexpectedly although her health had been indifferent for some time. I have a little adopted son who is now nearly 2 and was about 10 months old when his mother, ie. my wife, died. He was 3 weeks old when we adopted him. He is a splendid child and fortunately very healthy, and is a great pleasure to me. I didn't do much in the war because I was class IV, having a disease called bronchiectasis and also a lesion in one lung which was never diagnosed when I was a boy. But actually my health has been much better the last few years thanks to M and B.4 The only bit of war I saw apart from blitzes and the Home Guard was being a war correspondent for a little while in Germany about the time of the collapse, which was quite interesting. I was in the Spanish war for a bit and was wounded through the neck, which paralysed one vocal cord, but this doesn't affect my voice. As you gathered I had a difficult time making a living out of writing at the start, though looking back now, and knowing what a racket literary journalism is, I see that I could have managed much better if I had known the ropes. At present the difficulty with all writers I know is that whereas it is quite easy to make a living by journalism or broadcasting, it is practically impossible to live by books. Before the war my wife and I used to live off my books, but then we lived in the country on PS5 a week, which you could do then, and we didn't have a child. The last few years life has been so ghastly expensive that I find the only way I can write books is to write long essays for the magazines and then reprint them. However all this hackwork I have done in the last few years has had the advantage that it gets me a new public, and when I do publish a book it sells a lot more than mine used to before the war.

  You mentioned Freddie Ayer.5 I didn't know you knew him. He is a great friend of mine. This new magazine, Polemic, has only made two appearances so far, but I have great hopes that it will develop into something good. Bertrand Russell is of course the chief star in the constellation. It was a bad job Bobby Longden 6 getting killed. I believe Wellington became very enlightened while he was there. A boy whom you may know called Michael Meyer,7 who was in the RAF and is now I think back at Cambridge again, was at Wellington under Bobby and has a great regard for him.

  I will certainly come and see you next time I am at Cambridge, but I don't quite know when that will be. I thought of you last time I was there about 2 years ago when I was lecturing to the London School of Economics which was evacuated there. About my name. I have used the name Orwell as a pen-name for a dozen years or more, and most of the people I know call me George, but I have never actually changed my name and some people still call me Blair. It is getting to be such a nuisance that I keep meaning to change it by deed poll, but you have to go to a solicitor etc. which puts me off.

  Yours

  Eric Blair

  P.S. You couldn't be expected to read all the books your ex-pupils have produced, but I wonder whether you saw my last book but one, Animal Farm? If not I'd be happy to send you a copy. It is very short and might amuse you.

  [XVIII, 2972, pp. 241-3; typewritten]

  1.M. D. Hill was a master at Eton in Orwell's time.

  2.'Boys' Weeklies', Horizon, 1940, XII, pp. 57-79.

  3.The Honorable George Lyttelton, a master at Eton who was also in correspondence with Orwell at this time. He was no longer at Eton and wrote to Orwell on 9 April 1946 to thank him for replying to an earlier letter and to invite him to write one of the biographies of great writers he was editing for Home & Van Thal. He said he suspected Orwell was 'committed kneedeep' but thought it worth asking. A year or two earlier, at PS50 down and a royalty of 15% for 30,000 words, it might have been a chance to be seized. In a postscript he wrote, 'I am very glad you put in a word for that foolish old Wodehouse. The discovery made by all our patriots that, because he made an ass of himself in the war, none of his books was really at all funny was very absurd--& very English.'

  4.May & Baker, drug manufacturers. Orwell is probably referring to a treatment for pneumonia.

  5.Alfred Jules Ayer (1910-1989; Kt., 1970), philosopher. His Language, Truth and Logic (1936) was a revolutionary work, the first extensive presentation of Logical Positivism in English. After Eton and Christ Church (1932-44) he served in the Welsh Guards and was an attache at the British Embassy in Paris. From 1946 to 1978 he held professional appointments at UCL and Oxford; he was a fellow of Wolfson College, 1978-83.

  6.Robert P. ('Bobbie') Longden, a contemporary of Orwell's at Eton, had a brilliant academic career, became headmaster of Wellington, and was killed in 1940 by a German stray bomb that hit the school. Orwell's comment about Wellington becoming 'very enlightened while [Longden] was there' may reflect on his memories of the short time he spent at the school before going to Eton: he 'did not like Wellington at all. He found the militaristic spirit of this famous army school abhorrent' (Crick, p. 96).

  7.Michael Leverson Meyer (1921-2000), writer, critic, and distinguished translator and biographer of Ibsen and Strindberg. He had written what he described as a 'timid letter' to Orwell when Orwell was at the BBC and had a friendly response (13 April 1943) and they became friends. He had served in Bomber Command, 1942-45, and was Lecturer in English Literature, Uppsala University, Sweden, 1947-50.

  To Anne Popham*

  18 April 1946

  27 B Canonbury Square

  Islington N 1

  Dear Andy,

  I must have got your letter about the 7th, and I have thought over it a long time, as you can see by the date. I wonder if I committed a sort of crime in approaching you. In a way it's scandalous that a person like me should make advances to a person like you, and yet I thought from your appearance that you were not only lonely and unhappy, but also a person who lived chiefly throu
gh the intellect and might become interested in a man who was much older and not much good physically. You asked me what attracted me to you in the first place. You are very beautiful, as no doubt you well know, but that wasn't quite all. I do so want someone who will share what is left of my life, and my work. It isn't so much a question of someone to sleep with, though of course I want that too, sometimes. You say you wouldn't be likely to love me. I don't see how you could be expected to. You are young and fresh and you have had someone you really loved and who would set up a standard I couldn't compete with. If you still feel you can start again and you want a handsome young man who can give you a lot of children, then I am no good to you. What I am really asking you is whether you would like to be the widow of a literary man. If things remain more or less as they are there is a certain amount of fun in this, as you would probably get royalties coming in and you might find it interesting to edit unpublished stuff etc. Of course there is no knowing how long I shall live, but I am supposed to be a 'bad life.' I have a disease called bronchiectasis which is always liable to develop into pneumonia, and also an old 'non-progressive' tuberculous lesion in one lung, and several times in the past I have been supposed to be about to die, but I always lived on just to spite them, and I have actually been better in health since M and B. I am also sterile I think--at any rate I have never had a child, though I have never undergone the examination because it is so disgusting. On the other hand if you wanted children of your own by someone else it wouldn't bother me, because I have very little physical jealousy. I don't much care who sleeps with whom, it seems to me what matters is being faithful in an emotional and intellectual sense. I was sometimes unfaithful to Eileen, and I also treated her very badly, and I think she treated me badly too at times, but it was a real marriage in the sense that we had been through awful struggles together and she understood all about my work, etc. You are young and healthy, and you deserve somebody better than me: on the other hand if you don't find such a person, and if you think of yourself as essentially a widow, then you might do worse--ie. supposing I am not actually disgusting to you. If I can live another ten years I think I have another three worth-while books in me, besides a lot of odds and ends, but I want peace and quiet and someone to be fond of me. There is also Richard. I don't know what your feelings are about him. You might think all this over. I have spoken plainly to you because I feel you are an exceptional person. And I wish when you come back you would come and stay on Jura. I think I should have made the house fairly comfortable by then, and Richard and Susan, and perhaps other people, will be there as chaperons. I am not asking you to come and be my mistress, just to come and stay. I think you would like it. It is a beautiful place, quite empty and wild.

  I don't think there's much news here. It's been beautiful spring weather and the chestnut trees in the square are full out, ie. the leaves, such a vivid green as you don't expect to see in London. I am alone because Susan and Richard have gone down into the country for the Easter weekend. I stayed behind because I want to polish off odds and ends of work and to pack the stuff before sending it to Jura. Last week I went down to the cottage in Hertfordshire to sort out the furniture and books there before Pickfords came for it. I had been putting it off because I hadn't been down there since Eileen died and expected it to be horribly upsetting but actually it wasn't so bad except when I kept coming on old letters. I am sending what furniture I have there, but have also had to buy innumerable things, almost like stocking up a ship. Pickfords are supposed to remove everything next week, about the 25th, and they think it will take at least 10 days to get there, after which it has to travel to the house by lorry, so it's unlikely that I shall leave London before about May 10th, if then. Of course this move costs something fabulous1--on the other hand, once it's accomplished and the house got into running order, there is a nice summer residence at almost no rent. I particularly want it for Richard, because he's really getting too big to stay in a flat in the summer. It is a job now to keep him inside the garden, because he knows in principle how to open the gate and sometimes manages to do it. Next winter when we come back I shall send him to the nursery school. It's funny he doesn't seem to want to talk--he is so intelligent in every other way. He tries now to put on his own shoes and socks, and he knows how to drive in a nail, though he can't actually do it without hammering his fingers. He is still terrified of the vacuum cleaner and we can't use it while he is about.

  You asked about a book of mine about France--I suppose Down and Out in Paris and London. I literally don't possess a copy, even of the Penguin edition. I suppose it will be re-issued some time. I think the American edition of the essays has just come out, and my other American publisher cabled to say Animal Farm had been chosen by something called the Book of the Month Club. I think that must mean a sale of at least 20,0002 and that even after paying the taxes at both ends, and even if I've signed a disadvantageous contract, which I probably did, it should bring in enough to keep me in idleness for several months. The only thing is that they won't publish it till the autumn and there's many a slip etc.

  I wonder if you have heard the cuckoo. I think I did dimly hear it when I was in Germany this time last year, between 'Lili Marlene'3 and the roaring of trucks and tanks. The year before that I was so tied to London I never heard a cuckoo at all, the first year in my life that this had happened to me, ie. in London. I haven't heard it this year yet because I was down in Wallington a few days too early, but I think I saw one sitting on a telegraph wire as I came back in the train. You often see them a few days before you hear them. After writing my article on toads for Tribune4 I went up to the little disused reservoir in the village where we used to catch newts, and there were the tadpoles forming as usual. It was rather sad. We used to have a small aquarium made of a 7 pound pickle jar each year and watch the newts grow from little black blobs in the spawn to full-grown creatures, and we also used to have snails and caddis flies.

  I shall have to stop because I have to wash up the breakfast things and then go out to lunch. Take care of yourself. I hope you're better. It's beastly being ill in those circumstances, so lonely and comfortless. You didn't say whether you want to be sent magazines or anything. And write as soon as you can. I hope you will come and stay on Jura. It would be wonderful walking over to the west side of the island which is quite uninhabited and where there are bays of green water so clear you can see about 20 feet down, with seals swimming about. Don't think I'll make love to you against your will. You know I am civilized.

  With love

  George

  P.S. [handwritten] I'm taking you at your word & only putting 11/2d on this, because it's Good Friday & these are all the stamps I can find.5

  [XVIII, 2978, pp. 248-51; typewritten

  with handwritten postscript]

  1.Orwell's goods were valued at PS250. The cost of transporting them (Pickfords, plus rail, plus ship as far as Craighouse, plus insurance) was PS114 3s 8d. The goods had then to be conveyed from Craighouse to Barnhill.

  2.The first printing for Book-of-the-Month Club was 430,000 copies and the second 110,000.

  3.'Lili Marlene' was a song popular with both German and Allied servicemen. It was played by chance by a German-operated station in Yugoslavia and heard, and enjoyed, by men of the British Eighth Army and Rommel's troops in North Africa. It tells of a woman waiting for her soldier-lover, and it was used by the British for propaganda purposes. It was made the subject of a propaganda film (with the same title) directed by Humphrey Jennings (1944).

  4.'Some Thoughts on the Common Toad', 12 April 1946 (XVIII, 2970, pp. 238-41) - one of Orwell's finest essays.

  5.This was the correct amount for Forces' mail. Post Offices closed on Good Friday.

  To Stafford Cottman*

  25 April 1946

  27B Canonbury Square

  Islington N 1

  Dear Staff,

  It was very nice to hear from you. I didn't realise you were still in the RAF. Be sure and look me up if you're in
London when I'm here (if I am the above telephone number1 will always get me), but I'm shortly going away for 6 months. I've been doing too much hack journalism for several years past and have decided to drop it for a bit--for two months I mean to do nothing at all, then maybe I shall start another book, but any way, no journalism until next autumn. I have written three articles a week for two years, in addition to all the bilge I had to write for the BBC for two years before that. I have given up the cottage in Hertfordshire and taken another in the island of Jura in the Hebrides, and hope to go up there about May 10th if my furniture has arrived by that time. It's in an extremely un-get-atable place, but it's a nice house and I think I can make it quite comfortable with a little trouble, and then I shall have a nice place to retire to occasionally at almost no rent. My little boy whom I think you have never seen is now nearly 2 and extremely active, which is one of the reasons why I am anxious to get out of London for the summer. He was 10 months old when Eileen died. It was an awful shame--she had been so overworked for years and in wretched health, then things just seemed to be getting better and that happened. The only good thing was that I don't think she expected anything to go wrong with the operation. She died as a result of the anaesthetic almost as soon as they gave it her. I was in France at the time, as neither of us had expected the operation to be very serious. The child I think was just too young to miss her, and he has done very well in health and everything else. I have a good housekeeper who looks after him and me.

  The other day I ran into Paddy Donovan in the Edgware Road.2 He has a job cleaning windows and he said he would ring me up, but he hasn't done so yet. He was wounded in Germany about the time of the crossing of the Rhine. Don't forget to ring me up if you're in town this coming autumn.