I’m just reading Ruth Fischer’s enormous book, Stalin and German Communism. It’s extremely good—not at all the sort of doctrinaire Trotskyism I would have expected. Have you seen the new Catholic magazine, the Month? It’s lousy. I also read Margarete Neumann’s book (the woman who gave evidence for Kravchenko), but it’s about the Russian and German concentration camps, not about the party squabbles in Germany. I must send some books home soon. They’re piling up fast here. Ask Avril to wipe the books now and then, will you, and to light a fire in those rooms. Otherwise the covers end by bending.
Love to all
Eric
[XX, 3600, pp. 87–90; typewritten]
1.Described, with contents, and reproduced at XX, 3729, pp. 231–3.
2.Lilian Wolfe (1875–1974), born in London, worked for twenty years as a Post Office telegraphist. She became a socialist and women’s suffragist in 1907, and in 1913 an anarcho-syndicalist. She was active in the anti-war movement, 1914–16, and was imprisoned, as was her companion, Thomas Keell (1866–1938). After the war she ran health-food shops in London and Stroud, living in the main at the anarchist colony at Whiteway, some five miles from Cranham; Richard stayed there when visiting his father. She earned enough to keep her husband and son and support the anarchist journal, Freedom. In 1966 the anarchist movement gave her a holiday in the United States as a ninetieth birthday present. After a lifetime devoted to anarchism she died at her son’s home in Cheltenham at ninety-eight (Nicolas Walter’s account of her life, Freedom, Centenary Number, 1986, 23–24).
3.Harold Laski (see 20.9.47, n. 1). Re list of crypto-Communists and fellow-travellers, see 6.4.49, n. 1.
4.G. D. H. Cole (1889–1959), economist and prolific author; his books include The Intelligent Man’s Guide to the Post-War World (1947) and The Meaning of Marxism (1948), based on his What Marx Really Meant (1934).
5.Kingsley Martin (1887–1969), then editor of the New Statesman (see 9.2.38, n. 1).
6.One was presumably Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971), American theologian and professor at Union Theological Seminary, 1930–60, for a time a socialist and pacifist; later a supporter of the war against Hitler. Regarding a second Niebuhr, it is possible that there is confusion between Reinhold and his brother, Helmut Richard (1894–1962), ordained a minister of the Evangelical & Reformed Church in 1916 and from 1931 pursued a distinguished career at Yale. He was involved in the union of the Congregational and the Evangelical & Reformed churches.
7.Konni Zilliacus (see 2.1.48 n. 5).
8.Dennis Noel Pritt (1887–1972), Labour and then Independent Labour MP and chairman of the Society for Cultural Relations with the USSR.
9.John Platt-Mills (1906–2001), a New Zealander and unshakeable apologist for Stalin; he disbelieved the Soviets committed atrocities even after Khrushchev denounced Stalin in 1956. Expelled from the Labour Party, 1948.
10.Hugh Lester Hutchinson (1904–1950), journalist and author, studied in Switzerland and at Edinburgh University, and served in the Navy, 1942–44. He was elected Labour MP in 1945 but was expelled in 1949 for his criticism of the Labour government’s foreign policy.
11.Ian Mikardo (1908–1993), management consultant, author of Centralised Control of Industry (1942), and politician. He was a left-wing Labour MP, 1945–59 and 1964–87, and was a prominent follower of Aneurin Bevan and a rumbustious debater with a strong sense of comedy. He was often considered to be unduly sympathetic to Communism, but his passionate Zionism ensured that he never forgot or forgave Stalin for his treatment of Jews. He was much appreciated by fellow MPs of all parties in his role as ‘unofficial bookmaker’ to Parliament, offering odds on contentious issues and the fortunes of political figures.
To Dr Gwen O’Shaughnessy*
17 April 1949
The Cotswold Sanatorium
Cranham
Dear Gwen,
I have been meaning for ages to write to you. Among other things I owe you money for some things you got for Richard. I can’t remember what they were but I have an idea they included an overcoat. Please let me know and I’ll pay you.
I have been here since January and am getting a little better I think. I was really very ill in December, and again recently. I had a relapse and they decided to try another go of streptomycin, with dreadful results after only one dose. I suppose I had built up a resistance to it or something. However the last few days I have felt better and have even been sitting out in a deck chair a little. They can’t really do much for me except keep me quiet. They can’t do the ‘thora’ operation (somewhat to my relief I must say) because you need one reliable lung which I haven’t got. It looks as though I shall be here till well into the summer, and if I do get up to Jura this year it will only be for a week or two in August or September. [Must be surer about his health – shall have to spend the winter somewhere warmer; Richard’s schooling; Barnhill.]
I have remade my will,1 or rather I have sent the will I made some years ago to a solicitor to be redrafted, as it occurred to me it might not be in proper legal order. I have made you my executor, which I don’t think will involve much nuisance, as Richard Rees is my literary executor and he will see to all the business of dealing with publishers etc. I have also requested—this is one of the things that I want the solicitor to put in good order—that you and Avril shall decide between you about Richard’s upbringing, but that if there is any dispute the decision shall lie with you. I don’t suppose any disagreement is likely to arise between you. Avril is very fond of him and I know will want to bring him up, but if anything should happen to her, or if she should wish to live in any place where he can’t go to school, I wish you would take charge of him. I don’t think you would be financially out of pocket. I have put aside enough to see him through his childhood in a modest way. If I should die in the near future, there are considerable income tax claims to be met, but there is also a good deal of money coming in and I think the ‘estate’ would be easily cleared without encroaching on my savings. There should also be at any rate a small income from royalties for some years to come. I trust that all this won’t become urgent yet awhile, but after these two illnesses I don’t imagine I can last very many years, and I do want to feel that Richard’s future is assured. When I am able to get up to London I shall go and see Morlock 2 or somebody and get an expert opinion on how long I am likely to live. It is a thing doctors usually will not tell you, but it affects my plans, for future books as well as for Richard.
Richard was extremely well when I came away, and is evidently enjoying himself with the spring ploughing etc. He really seems quite fond of farm work. I have been trying to think what to give him for his birthday next month. I suppose he is almost old enough to have a pocket knife, but somehow I don’t fancy the idea. Avril says he has found out about money, ie. knows you can get sweets3 for it, so I have started him on regular pocket money, which I hope may teach him the days of the week. I am going to get her to bring him down here to see me, but it is no use till I am out of bed.
I am not doing any work at present. I have cancelled everything, but I hope to start again next month. My new book is coming out in June, here and in the USA. I had a line from Doreen and George [Kopp*] announcing their new baby, but otherwise haven’t heard from them. Please remember me to the kids.
Yours
George
[XX, 3601, pp. 90–2; typewritten]
1.Orwell made a new will on 18 January 1950, before the flight he hoped to make to Switzerland. At probate Orwell’s estate was valued at £9,908 14s 11d. He was owed £520 he had lent to friends. Of course his royalties proved to be – and continue to be – considerable. For his will and estate (see XX, 3730, pp. 235–7).
2.Dr H. V. Morlock, the specialist whom Orwell had consulted before the war.
3.Sweets and chocolate were still rationed when Orwell wrote, but just one week later restrictions were lifted. Unfortunately, this freedom did not last long. Confectionery was rationed again (4 ounces per week) on 14 July, the suga
r ration was cut to 8 ounces, and tobacco imports were reduced.
To Sir Richard Rees*
25 April 1949
[The Cotswold Sanatorium]
Cranham
Dear Richard,
Thanks for your letter. I have been sort of up & down in health but on the whole am a little better, I think. I still can’t make any plans, but if I am up & about for the winter, I thought it might not be a bad idea to go abroad somewhere, & Orlando1 (I don’t know if you know him, he writes for the Observer sometimes) suggested Capri as a good place to stay. It sounds as if it would have good food & wine, & Silone,2 who is a friend of mine & lives there, would no doubt be able to arrange somewhere for me to stay. Any way it’s worth thinking over. The Tawneys came in the other day. I think they’re going back to London almost immediately, so I’m afraid I may not see them again. For little Richard’s birthday, Inez [Holden] is going to try & get me one of those children’s typewriters you see advertised now, if not too impossibly expensive. I thought if he could be kept from smashing it, it would come in useful when he begins to learn his letters in earnest, & it would also keep him off my typewriter. The Tawneys took that book of yours 3 I had & are going to send it to you. When Brenda [Salkeld] comes I am going to get her to make up some parcels for me & send home some of the books, which are piling up fearfully. I still can’t do any work. Some days I take pen & paper & try to write a few lines, but it’s impossible. When you are in this state you have the impression that your brain is working normally until you try to put words together, & then you find that you have acquired a sort of awful heaviness & clumsiness, as well as inability to concentrate for more than a few seconds. I am reading Mr Sponge’s Sporting Tour, which I had never read before. I don’t think it’s as good as Handley Cross. I also recently re-read Little Dorrit4 for the first time in a good many years. It’s a dull book in a way, but it contains a really subtle character, William Dorrit, quite unlike most of Dickens’s people. Someone in the USA has managed to get me a copy of Gissing’s New Grub Street at last. Don’t lose The Odd Women, will you.
Yours
Eric
[XX, 3607, pp. 97–98; handwritten]
l.Ruggiero Orlando (1907–1994), journalist, broadcaster, poet, and critic. His passionate, slightly anarchic political views led to his fleeing Italy in 1939 for Britain. He was engaged by the BBC to broadcast in its external service and did so with great success, achieving a legendary status with colleagues and listeners. After the war he worked for RAI, the Italian state broadcasting service, and was its correspondent in the United States for eighteen years. He returned to Italy in 1972 and was elected to the Chamber of Deputies. He was, when in England, a frequent contributor to Poetry Today, and he translated Dylan Thomas into Italian.
2.Ignazio Silone (1900–1978), Italian novelist. In his essay on Arthur Koestler, Orwell claimed that there had been nothing in English writing to resemble Silone’s Fontamara (1933; English translation, 1934) or Koestler’s Darkness at Noon (1940): ‘there is almost no English writer to whom it has happened to see totalitarianism from the inside.’
3.Probably David Jones’s In Parenthesis. (See letter to Sir Richard Rees, 18.1.49, n. 2.)
4.Orwell’s list of his reading for April 1949 includes Dickens’s Little Dorrit and Surtees’s Mr Sponge’s Sporting Tour.
To S. M. Levitas
2 May 1949
The Cotswold Sanatorium,
Cranham
Dear Mr Levitas,1
Many thanks for your letter of the 21st April. I will do something for you later when I can, but I really am most deadly ill & quite unable to work, & I don’t know how soon this state of affairs will change. I don’t want any payment & certainly not Care packages – the truth is I have no appetite & can’t eat the food I am given already. But next time I do something for you I’ll ask you to pay me by sending one of the books I see advertised in American papers & which one can’t get over here.
The above address will continue to find me, I’m afraid.
Yours sincerely
Geo. Orwell
[XX, 3616, p. 104; handwritten]
1.S. M. Levitas (1894–1961) was the editor of the long-running left-wing periodical, The New Leader, New York. It closed down in 2006. He replied to Orwell on 3 June saying how willing he was to get ‘any and every book which you would like’. However, he seemed oblivious to Orwell’s repeated protestations that he was very ill and continued to harass him. On this occasion, despite Orwell’s description of his sickness, he asked for ‘an original piece’ and also to write a ‘Guest Columnist Editorial’ of one thousand words ‘on any subject you desire’.
To Sir Richard Rees*
2 May 1949
[The Cotswold Sanatorium]
Cranham
Dear Richard,
I have to hand-write because there is a patient further down the row who is in articulo mortis,1 or thinks she is, & the typewriter worries her.
About this business of Barnhill etc. I cannot make any real plans until I know if & when I shall get out of bed, but the governing facts are:
1. I can’t in future spend the winters in Jura.
2. Richard must go to school next year, which means somebody being with him, as I don’t want him to go to a boarding school till he is at any rate 10.
3. I don’t want to disrupt the Barnhill ménage.
4. Avril will probably want to stay on at Barnhill, & Bill in any case couldn’t get on without her, or without some female helper.
All this being so, it seems to me that if I am in circulation again later this year, I had best go abroad or somewhere like Brighton for the winter, & then next spring set up a second establishment in London or Edinburgh where I can have Richard with me & where he can go to day-school. He can spend his holidays in Jura, & I hope I shall be able to spend my summers there as well. This will mean having another nurse-maid or housekeeper or something. However, provided I can work I can easily earn enough money for this; in any case it was agreed between Avril & me that if she stopped looking after R. I should reduce the amount I paid her. If I remain bedridden, or at any rate have to remain under medical care, which I suppose is a possibility, I shall move to a sanatorium somewhere near London, where it is easier for friends & business associates to come & see me, & set up an establishment for Richard near there, with a housekeeper or something. That is as much as I can plan at present.
Thanks so much for drying off all the books. I don’t agree with you about The Great Gatsby—I was rather disappointed by it. It seemed to me to lack point,2 & Tender is the Night, which I read recently, even more so.3 I’ve just read Geoffrey Gorer’s book on the Americans—very amusing & shallow, as usual. I’ve at last got hold of May Sinclair’s The Combined Maze—a forgotten good bad novel which I’ve been trying to get a copy of for years. I must get some more books rebound before long. Re my unsuccessful efforts to get Gissing reprinted, it’s struck me that the Everyman Library might do one of them. They have no Gissing on their list. I wonder how one approaches them, & whether there is a string one can pull.
In spite of his chumminess with ‘Zilli’4 (who he of course thinks can help him in his political career), I don’t believe Mikardo is a crypto. Apart from other things, if he were a crypto, Michael Foot 5 would probably know it & wouldn’t have him on Tribune. They got rid of Edelmann°6 for that reason. It’s of course true that ‘objectively’ people like Laski7 are a lot more useful to the Russians than the overt Communists, just as it is true that ‘objectively’ a pacifist is pro-war & pro-militarist. But it seems to me very important to attempt to gauge people’s subjective feelings, because otherwise one can’t predict their behaviour in situations where the results of certain actions are clear even to a self-deceiver. Suppose for example that Laski had possession of an important military secret. Would he betray it to the Russian military intelligence? I don’t imagine so, because he has not actually made up his mind to be a traitor, & the nature of what he was doing would in
that case be quite clear. But a real Communist would, of course, hand the secret over without any sense of guilt, & so would a real crypto, such as Pritt. The whole difficulty is to decide where each person stands, & one has to treat each case individually.
The weather has rather gone off here. I sat outside in a deck chair one or two days, but latterly it’s been too cold. A man came from the E[vening]. Standard to ‘interview’ me,8 rather an intimidating experience, also Paul Potts,9 who has just got back from Palestine, together with the wife of A. J. P. Taylor,10 the chap who turned traitor at the Wroclaw conference. I gather from her that Taylor has since turned a good deal more anti-CP.
Yours
Eric
[XX, 3617, pp. 104–6; handwritten]
1.‘at the moment of death’.
2.Orwell’s letter has been annotated here, ‘NO!’
George Orwell: A Life in Letters Page 59