A Life in Letters

by George Orwell

  4.Edward Crankshaw (1909-1984), novelist and critic, member of diplomatic staff on the Observer from 1947; British Military Mission to Moscow, 1941-43. In David Astor and 'The Observer', Richard Cockett states: 'Orwell was instrumental in making David aware of the post-war problem of decolonization in Africa. The Observer was thus the first, and for a long time the only, British paper to focus on the problems of decolonization in Africa and in particular the plight of Africans on their own continent' (p. 126).

  To Fredric Warburg*

  22 October 1948

  Barnhill

  Isle of Jura

  Dear Fred,

  You will have had my wire by now, and if anything crossed your mind I dare say I shall have had a return wire from you by the time this goes off. I shall finish the book, D.V. 1, early in November, and I am rather flinching from the job of typing it, because it is a very awkward thing to do in bed, where I still have to spend half the time. Also there will have to be carbon copies, a thing which always fidgets me, and the book is fearfully long, I should think well over 100,000 words, possibly 125,000. I can't send it away because it is an unbelievably bad MS and no one could make head or tail of it without explanation. On the other hand a skilled typist under my eye could do it easily enough. If you can think of anybody who would be willing to come, I will send money for the journey and full instructions. I think we could make her quite comfortable. There is always plenty to eat and I will see that she has a comfortable warm place to work in.

  I am not pleased with the book but I am not absolutely dissatisfied. I first thought of it in 1943. I think it is a good idea but the execution would have been better if I had not written it under the influence of TB. I haven't definitely fixed on the title but I am hesitating between Nineteen Eighty-Four and The Last Man in Europe.

  I have just had Sartre's book on antisemitism, which you published, to review. I think Sartre is a bag of wind and I am going to give him a good boot.2

  Please give everyone my love.

  Yours

  George

  [XIX, 3477, pp. 456-7; typewritten]

  1.D.V.: Deo volente = God willing.

  2.Portrait of the Anti-Semite,Observer, 7 November 1948, XIX, 3485, pp. 464-5.

  To Julian Symons*

  29 October 1948

  Barnhill

  Isle of Jura

  Dear Julian,

  I can't thank you enough for the tea, which I do hope you could spare. My sister, who keeps house for me, was enchanted to see it and asked me to say she will pack up a little butter for you next churning day. I am so glad to hear that all is well with your wife and daughter and that you enjoy having a baby. They're really great fun, so much so that I find myself wishing at each stage that they could stay like that. I suppose you are on the steady grind of 5 bottles and 15 nappies a day. It's funny that they are so insatiably greedy when they are small babies and then between about 2 and 6 it is such a fight to get them to eat, except between meals. I wonder which milk you are using. We brought up Richard on Ostermilk, which seemed to be better than National Dried.1 His cousin was brought up on Cow and Gate and became grossly fat on it. You've got a big battle ahead when it comes to weaning time.

  I was very well for some time after leaving hospital but have been very poorly again for the last month. [Effect of visit to Hairmyres Hospital.] Even to walk half a mile is upsetting. I was going to come down to London in January, but I am consulting with my doctor and if he thinks it best I shall go into a private sanatorium, if I can find one, for the worst of the winter, ie. Jan-Feb. I could go abroad perhaps, but the journey might be the death of me, so perhaps a sanatorium would be best. I think I am going to give up my London flat, as I never use it at present and it costs me about PS100 a year and a lot of nuisance. Of course I shall have to get another London place later. I shall finish my book, D.V., in a week or ten days, but I am rather flinching from typing it, which is a tiring job and in any case can't be done in bed where I have to be half the day. [Attempting to get a typist to come to Jura.]

  I am rather surprised to hear of John Davenport associating himself with a CP or near-CP paper.2 He used not to be that way inclined, that I knew of. Politics & Letters I am sorry to say has disappeared and is supposed to be reappearing next year as a monthly, rather to my annoyance as they had an article of mine. It is nonsense what Fyvel said about Eliot being antisemitic. Of course you can find what would now be called antisemitic remarks in his early work, but who didn't say such things at that time? One has to draw a distinction between what was said before and what after 1934. Of course all these nationalistic prejudices are ridiculous, but disliking Jews isn't intrinsically worse than disliking Negroes or Americans or any other block of people. In the early twenties, Eliot's antisemitic remarks were about on a par with the automatic sneer one casts at Anglo-Indian colonels in boarding houses. On the other hand if they had been written after the persecutions began they would have meant something quite different. Look for instance at the Anglophobia in the USA, which is shared even by people like Edmund Wilson. It doesn't matter, because we are not being persecuted. But if 6 million Englishmen had recently been killed in gas vans, I imagine I should feel insecure if I even saw a joke in a French comic paper about Englishwomen's teeth sticking out. Some people go round smelling after antisemitism all the time. I have no doubt Fyvel* thinks I am antisemitic.3 More rubbish is written about this subject than any other I can think of. I have just had Sartre's book on the subject for review, and I doubt whether it would be possible to pack more nonsense into so short a space. I have maintained from the start that Sartre is a bag of wind, though possibly when it comes to Existentialism, which I don't profess to understand, it may not be so.

  Richard is blooming. [His progress; winters milder in Jura than England.] For the first time in my life I have tried the experiment of keeping a pig. They really are disgusting brutes and we are all longing for the day when he goes to the butcher, but I am glad to see they do well here. He has grown to a stupendous size purely on milk and potatoes, without our buying any food for him from outside. In another year or so I shall have to be thinking about Richard's schooling, but I am not making any plans because one can't see far ahead now. I am not going to let him go to a boarding school before he is ten, and I would like him to start off at the elementary school. If one could find a good one. It's a difficult question. Obviously it is democratic for everyone to go to the same schools, or at least start off there but when you see what the elementary schools are like, and the results, you feel that any child that has the chance should be rescued from them. It is quite easy, for instance, to leave those schools at 14 without having learned to read. I heard on the wireless lately that 10 per cent of army recruits, aged 19, have to be taught to read after they join the army. I remember in 1936 meeting John Strachey 4 in the street--then a CP member or at least on the staff of the [Daily] Worker--and him telling me he had just had a son and was putting him down for Eton. I said 'How can you do that?' and he said that given our existing society it was the best education. Actually I doubt whether it is the best, but in principle I don't feel sure that he was wrong. However I am taking no decisions about Richard one way or the other. Of course we may all have been blown to hell before it becomes urgent, but personally I don't expect a major shooting war for 5 or 10 years. After the Russians have fully recovered and have atomic bombs,5 I suppose it isn't avoidable. And even if it is avoided, there are a lot of other unpleasantnesses blowing up.

  Please remember me to your wife and give my best regards to your daughter.

  Yours

  George

  [XIX, 3481, pp. 460-2; typewritten]

  1.National Dried was a milk powder, akin to proprietary brands such as Ostermilk, made available by the government through Baby Clinics to mothers of young babies.

  2.John Davenport (1906-1966), critic and man of letters, a friend of many writers and painters. The paper was probably Our Time, to which he was a contributor. In the autumn o
f 1948 it was edited by Frank Jellinek and in 1949 by Randall Swingler.

  3.Tosco Fyvel*, a long-standing friend of Orwell's, comments on Orwell's remark that he, Fyvel, doubtless thought him antiSemitic in George Orwell: A Personal Memoir, pp. 178-82: 'I would never have said that,' though he reported that Malcolm Muggeridge thought Orwell 'at heart strongly antiSemitic'. Fyvel went on, 'Put baldly like that, I would not agree. . . . It was unthinkable that he should ever have been openly antiSemitic. But his ideological views concerning the assimilation into British culture of a strong Jewish ethnic minority were a different matter.'

  4.John Strachey (1901-1963), politician and political theorist; Labour MP, 1929-31, 1945-63. In 1946 he became a prominent member of the Labour government.

  5.Soviet Russia tested its first atomic bomb in September 1949.

  To David Astor*

  19 November 1948

  Barnhill

  Isle of Jura

  Dear David,

  Thanks so much for your letter. If you'd really like to give Richard something for Christmas, I wonder whether one can still get Meccano sets? I should think he is about ripe for one of the lower grades. Of course he'll lose all the bolts, but still that is the kind of thing he likes. He is tremendously active about the farm and household, has to take part in all operations such as chopping firewood, filling lamps etc., and even insists on pouring out my ration of gin for me every evening. He goes fishing with the others and caught several fish the other day. I am so glad your little girl is going on well. I suppose at 20 months she will be talking a bit, as well as walking. Julian Symons, whom I think you met at lunch once, has just got a baby and seems very absorbed in it. Margie Fletcher is over on the mainland having her fourth.

  It's very kind of Charoux1 to help about restoring the picture. When I can get round to doing so I'll make a crate and send it to him direct. I never can remember his address but I expect I have a letter of his somewhere. It's only a very small picture, about 20'' by 16 '', so it won't be difficult to pack. In sending it here those bloody fools Pickfords succeeded in making a slit in the canvas and also chipping it in two places, but I don't imagine it would be difficult to mend. It's of no value, but it has sentimental associations and I think is quite a good painting. There was also that picture which you gave me and which got blitzed.2 I was going to have that restored, but it's a more extensive job as it got scratched all over. It was thrown right across the room by the blast.

  I am on the grisly job of typing out my book which I have at last finished after messing about with it ever since the summer of 1947. I tried to get a stenog. to come here and do it for me, but it's awkward to get anyone for such a short period so I am doing it myself. I feel somewhat better now, but I was in absolutely lousy health for about a month and I have decided if I can arrange it to go into a private sanatorium for Jan-Feb, which is the worst of the winter. Dr. Dick thinks it would be a good idea. I seem to be all right so long as I stay in bed till lunch time and then spend the rest of the day on a sofa, but if I walk even a few hundred yards or pull up a few weeds in the garden I promptly get a temperature. Otherwise everything is going well here and the farm has had quite a good first year in spite of the vile weather. There is now a bull, which is very good and quiet and I trust will remain so, as I can't run very fast these days. Bobbie, your pony, is still at Tarbert, and I am not sure whether McIntyredeg wants us to winter him or not. I had a talk with your brother about it when I met him at the sports about August, but subsequently there was some mix-up and nobody from here has been down as far as Tarbert for some months. Anyway, if they would like us to winter Bobbie, we are pleased to do so, as he is useful to us in several ways and also makes a companion for the other horse. I do not know whether I shall be in London at any time in the near future--I suppose some time next year, but I must try and get my health right.

  I am so glad the Obs. is taking up Africa so to speak. Also that O'Donovan 3 is going on reporting Asia for you. He is really a great acquisition. Your friend de Gaulle seems to be bent on making mischief all round. However it rather looks now as if there won't be war for some years.

  Yours

  George

  [XIX, 3490, pp. 468-9; typewritten]

  1.A picture-framer and restorer; his address is given in Orwell's address book as 65 Holland Park Road, [London] W.14.

  2.A flying bomb fell close by the Orwells' flat in Mortimer Crescent on 28 June 1944.

  3.Patrick O'Donovan, who had joined the Observer in 1946 and worked with distinction as a roving correspondent abroad. (See his A Journalist's Odyssey, 1985.) To Gleb Struve*

  22 November 1948

  Barnhill

  Isle of Jura

  Dear Struve,

  Thanks so much for your letter of November 6th (only just got here.) I have written to Warburg, explaining the circumstances about We, and suggesting that if interested he should write either to you or to the people handling Westhouse's affairs. Of course if Warburg isn't interested there are plenty of others.

  Yes, of course it's all right about the Russian translation of Animal Farm.1 Naturally I don't want any money from D.Ps, but if they ever do produce it in book form I should like a copy or two of that. Did I tell you it was done into Ukrainian by the D.Ps in the American Zone about a year ago? I understand that the American authorities seized about half the copies printed and handed them over to the Soviet repatriation people, but that about 3000 copies got distributed.

  I'll look out for your Turgenev translation in Politics.2 [Is typing his book.]

  Yours sincerely

  Geo. Orwell

  [XIX, 3496, pp. 472-3; typewritten]

  1.The Russian translation of Animal Farm, Skotskii Khutor, was made by M. Kriger and Gleb Struve; it appeared in Possev, a weekly social and political review, Nos. 7-25, 1949, which published it as a book in 1950. Possev means the sowing of seed and outlasted the Soviet Union.

  2.Politics ceased publication before the translation could be published.

  To Leonard Moore*

  30 November 1948

  Barnhill

  Isle of Jura

  Dear Moore,

  I am afraid there has been a mix-up about this typing business and that you and perhaps the typing agencies you applied [to] have been put to unnecessary trouble. What happened was this. I wrote first to Warburg, asking him to engage a typist in London, but he and Senhouse apparently decided that it would be easier to arrange it in Edinburgh, because of the journey, although, of course, the tiresome part of the journey is not between London and Scotland but between Jura and the mainland. I waited for a bit, and then Roger Senhouse said he was putting his niece in Edinburgh on to the job of finding a typist. Meanwhile in case nothing materialised I had started doing it myself. Then apparently Warburg rang you up and I got two letters from you, suggesting the names of two people in London, but I couldn't close with this in case Senhouse's niece suddenly produced somebody. I have never heard from her, and now I hear from Senhouse that in fact she couldn't get anybody. Meanwhile I have almost finished the typing and shall send it off probably on the 7th December, so you should get it in about a week. I do hope the two women whose names you suggested have not been inconvenienced or put off other engagements or anything like that. It really wasn't worth all this fuss. It's merely that as it tires me to sit upright for any length of time I can't type very neatly and can't do many pages a day.

  These copies I am sending you are only carbons, and not first-class typing. If you think bad typing might prejudice the MS. with the American publishers, it would be worth having it redone by a commercial agency. But if you do decide on that, can you see that they don't make mistakes. I know what these agencies are like. As the thing is typed already, and I don't think I have left any errors in it, it should be easy enough, but it is wonderful what mistakes a professional typist will make, and in this book there is the difficulty that it contains a lot of neologisms.

  Yours sincerely

  Eric Blair />
  [XIX, 3501, p. 477; typewritten]

  To David Astor*

  21 December 1948

  Barnhill

  [Isle of Jura]

  Dear David,

  I am really very unwell indeed, & have been since about September, & I am arranging to go into a private sanatorium early in January & stay there at least 2 months. I was going to go to a place called Kingussie, reccommendeddeg by Dr. Dick, but they were full up & I have made arrangements to go to a place in Glostershire.deg I suppose there might be some slip-up, but if not my address as from 7th Jan. will be The Cotswold Sanatorium, CRANHAM, GLOS.

  I tell you this chiefly because I feel I simply must stop working, or rather trying to work, for at least a month or two. I would have gone to a sanatorium two months ago if I hadn't wanted to finish that bloody book off, which thank God I have done. I had been messing about with it for 18 months thanks to this bloody disease. I have polished off all the reviews I promised for the Observer except two [details and apologies to Mr Rose]. I'm afraid I[vor] B[rown] will mark this as another black mark against me, but I just must have a good rest for a month or two. I just must try & stay alive for a while because apart from other considerations I have a good idea for a novel.1

  Everything is flourishing here except me. [Life at Barnhill; has a stationary engine for Richard's Meccano.] We sent our pig to be slaughtered a week or two ago. He was only nine months old & weighed 2 cwt. after removal of the head & trotters.

  I hope your little girl is well. Margie Fletcher's new baby had something wrong intestinally, but it seems to be better now. It's another boy.

  Yours

  George

  [XIX, 3510, pp. 485-6; handwritten]

  1.Perhaps 'A Smoking-Room Story' (see XX, 3723-4, pp. 193-200).

  To Fredric Warburg*

  21 December 1948

  Barnhill

  [Isle of Jura]