I sent the documents to Cyril 1 as requested in your wire, and hope he got them in time, but I couldn't send them very promptly because of the difficulty of there only being two posts a week here and a telegram not moving any faster than a letter once it gets on to the island. I hope he makes good use of them. It is all pretty tough but only what you would expect. I thought the most interesting feature was what you too pointed out--the ambivalence all the way through, the writers constantly complaining that literature is dull and unimaginative and then wanting to cure this by clipping the artist's wings a little shorter.
I haven't really done any work this summer--actually I have at last started my novel about the future, but I've only done about 50 pages and God knows when it will be finished. However it's something that it is started, which it wouldn't have been if I hadn't got away from regular journalism for a while. Soon I suppose I shall be back at it, but I am dropping some of it and am going to try and do mostly highly-paid stuff which I needn't do so much of. I have arranged to do some book reviewing for the New Yorker which of course pays well. Please give everyone my love. Looking forward to seeing you. If you can't come please reply to the flat, as it's possible a letter might miss me here.
Yours
George
[XVIII, 3084, p. 408; typewritten]
1.Possibly Cyril Connolly in connection with the 'Cost of Letters', published in Horizon, September 1946 (XVIII, 3057, pp. 382-4).
To George Woodcock*
28 September 1946
Barnhill
Isle of Jura
Dear George,
I was quite stunned on hearing from you about Collettsdeg 1 taking over the S.B.C.2 How could it have happened? I thought they were doing quite well. And what happens about their publications, for instance the pamphlets they were issuing from time to time? There was one of mine they published a few months back,3 and I don't even know how many copies it sold. It is simply calamitous if there isn't one large leftwing bookshop not under C[ommunist] P[arty] control. However, I shouldn't say it would be impossible to set up a successful rival, because any CP bookshop must be hampered as a shop by being unable to stock 'the wrong' kind of literature. We must talk it over when I get back. I have no idea what capital you need to set up a well-stocked bookshop, but I fancy it is several thousand pounds. It is not inconceivable that one might dig the money out of some well-intentioned person like Hulton, 4 if he saw his way to not making a loss on it. The thing is to have a shop which apart from selling all the leftwing stuff is a good bookshop, has a lending library and is managed by someone who knows something about books. Having worked in a bookshop I have got ideas on the subject, which I'll tell you about when I get back.
Of course it's very flattering to have that article in Politics.5 I haven't a copy of Keep the Aspidistra Flying. I picked up a copy in a secondhand shop some months back, but I gave it away. There are two or three books which I am ashamed of and have not allowed to be reprinted or translated, and that is one of them. There is an even worse one called A Clergyman's Daughter. This was written simply as an exercise and I oughtn't to have published it, but I was desperate for money, ditto when I wrote Keep the A. At that time I simply hadn't a book in me, but I was half starved and had to turn out something to bring in PS100 or so.
I'm leaving here on the 9th and shall reach London on the 13th. I'll ring you up then. Love to Inge. Richard is blooming.
Yours
George
[XVIII, 3087, pp. 410-11; typewritten]
1.Collet's bookshop specialised in Communist publications. It was still active in the early nineties with an 'International Bookshop', a 'Chinese Bookshop and Gallery', and a Penguin Bookshop, but was no longer listed in the London telephone directory in 1995.
2.Socialist Book Centre.
3.James Burnham and the Managerial Revolution.
4.Edward Hulton (1906-1988; Kt., 1957), magazine publisher of liberal views, at the time proprietor of Picture Post.
5.'George Orwell, Nineteenth Century Liberal', by George Woodcock, Politics, December 1946. The essay forms chapter 7 of Woodcock's The Writer and Politics (1948).
To Dwight Macdonald*
15 October 1946
27B Canonbury Square
Islington N 1
Dear Dwight,
Thanks for your letter,1 which I got just before leaving Jura (I'm at the above again until about April of next year.) I'm awfully sorry about not sending you anything as promised, but part of the reason is that I have written almost nothing for 5 months. I went to Scotland largely with that end in view, because I was most desperately tired and felt that I had written myself out.
While there I did write one article 2 and just started a new book (lord knows when it will be finished--perhaps by the end of 1947), but that was all. Now I'm starting up again, but I am going to do my best to keep out of ordinary daily and weekly journalism, except for Tribune. As to the New Republic, I gave them the reprint of that article because they cabled and asked for it. I would have gladly given it to you, but it didn't occur to me as a thing that would particularly interest you. Shortly after that the New Republic wrote asking whether they could take their pick of any articles I write for Tribune, with which they have a reciprocal arrangement for the exchange of articles. I told them they could, but I expect they won't often avail themselves of it, because when I start writing for Tribune again I shall probably take over the 'As I Please' column, which is mostly topical English stuff. I am well aware that the N.R. people are Stalino-Liberals, but so long as they have no control over what I write, as they wouldn't under this arrangement, I rather like to have a foot in that camp. Their opposite numbers over here, the New Statesman, won't touch me with a stick, in fact my last contact with them was their trying to blackmail me into withdrawing something I had written in Tribune by threats of a libel action.3 Meanwhile I think I am going to write rather more for American papers when I start writing at all. I am going, I think, to do occasional book reviews for the New Yorker, and some agents called Mcintosh and Otis are very anxious for me to send copies of all my articles, a number of which they say they could market in the U.S. I have already arranged with Polemic that when I send them anything I shall simultaneously send a copy to the USA. Of course the agents' idea is to sell them to big-circulation magazines, but when there is anything that seems up your street I'll see that it gets to you first.
I suppose these letters aren't now opened by snoopers, and I want to ask you to do me a favour which I believe involves illegality (on my part, not yours.) Do you think you could get me some shoes? Or is it the same about clothes in the US as well? Even if you have the clothes coupons, which I never have, you simply can't get shoes in my size (twelves!) here. The last new pair I had were bought in 1941 and you can imagine what they are like now. I don't care what they cost, but I like stout heavy walking shoes and I would like two pairs if it's at all possible. I believe the American sizes are the same as the English.4 Could you let me know whether you think you can do this and what it will cost? I can get the money to you because I have or shall have some dollars in the USA. Even if you can manage to get them it will need strategy to send them because things like that get pinched in the docks. I'll tell you about that later. I suppose this black-market business seems very sordid to you, but I have been almost ragged for years, and in the end it becomes irritating and even depressing, so I am doing my best to get hold of a few clothes by one route and another.
I was very flattered to learn that George Woodcock is writing an article on me for you. He wrote asking me for a copy of one of the books I have suppressed.5 He was also very indignant about something I said about anarchism in Polemic and is writing a reply.6 Polemic is making rather a speciality of 'reply' articles. I think it is now shaping better, and it is doing quite well from a circulation point of view. You'll be glad to hear that Animal Farm has been or is being translated into 10 languages besides various clandestine translations or ones made abroad by refugees from t
he occupied countries. All the best.
Yours
Geo. Orwell
[XVIII, 3097, pp. 449-51; typewritten]
1.Dwight Macdonald wrote on 10 September 1946 with particular reference to Orwell's article on James Burnham. He thought Orwell's points were akin to those Macdonald had made in his review of Burnham in 1942 and that Burnham was no longer taken seriously in America. He asked Orwell why he didn't write for Politics any more, and in particular why he had let The New Republic have 'Politics and the English Language'. He proposed to reprint Orwell's review of Koestler's 'The Yogi and the Commissar', which had been published in C.W. Review, November 1945 ('Catastrophic Gradualism', XVII, 2778, pp. 342-7) in the September issue of Politics.
2.Presumably 'Politics vs. Literature: An Examination of Gulliver's Travels' (XVIII, 3089, pp. 417-32).
3.It is possible that Orwell is referring to the response (especially Kingsley Martin's) to 'As I Please', 40 (XVI, 2541, pp. 371-2), in which he discussed the Warsaw Uprising and the reaction to it of the press and intellectuals. Martin, editor of the New Statesman and Nation, protested that Orwell was not justified in including it among those which had 'licked the boots of Moscow'.
4.They are not the same. English 12 is US 121/2.
5.Keep the Aspidistra Flying. Woodcock's article was 'George Orwell, Nineteenth Century Liberal', Politics, December 1946.
6.See afterword to 'Politics vs. Literature', p. 431, for a summary of Woodcock's article.
To Leonard Moore*
18 October 1946
27 B Canonbury Square
Islington N 1
Dear Moore,
Many thanks for your letter of 17th October. I am glad to hear about the Norwegian serialisation of Animal Farm.1 You sent me recently some copies of the German edition, and it occurred to me that if the book sells well there may be some royalties over and above the amount Amstutz 2 paid in advance. If so, is there any way by which I could leave some francs in Switzerland? Everyone who comes back from there tells me about how easy it is to buy clothes in Switzerland, and after years of rationing I am in such desperate straits for shirts, underclothes etc. that I should like to be able to buy a few odds and ends. Or is one obliged to bring all foreign exchange back to this country? This matter isn't urgent, as even if extra royalties do accrue they won't be due for some months. But I should be glad to know how the position stands. With regard to possible future earnings in the USA, Mr Harrison3 explained to me that by becoming a chartered company in the USA I could leave money there if I wished to, and so long as it was spent there and not here it would only be liable to American income tax. I told him I should like to do this, as if I ever go to the USA--I don't want to do so now, but I might some time in 1948--it would be convenient to have some money there and I might as well avoid the higher tax.
He also said that he was going to Hollywood, and could he make any attempt on my behalf to negotiate film rights. I told him to get in touch with you, and I suppose he did this before leaving.
Yours sincerely
Eric Blair
[XVIII, 3099, pp. 452-3; typewritten]
1.In addition to a serialisation in Norwegian, a cheap edition was published in October 1946 as Diktatoren by Brann Forlag, Oslo. Only a small number of the 5-6,000 copies printed were sold, and when Brann Forlag was taken over, the new owners reduced the price (1948).
2.Verlag Amstutz, Herdeg & Co, Zurich, publishers of Farm der Tiere, October 1946.
3.Of Harrison, Son, Hill & Co., accountants. 'No one is patriotic about taxes' as Orwell remarked in his Wartime Diary on 9 August 1940. However, tax at the time he was earning anything like the just rewards for his labours amounted to 45% in the PS at the basic level and then rose to as much as 98% in the PS.
To Leonard Moore*
23 October 1946
27 B Canonbury Square
Islington N 1
Dear Moore,
Many thanks for your letter of the 22nd. It doesn't matter sending those two copies of Polemic to America. I can get others. The great rarity is the first number, of which only a very few battered copies exist.
As you know Warburg wants some time to do a uniform edition of my books, and would like in any case to re-issue one of the old ones some time in 1947, as I am not likely to have a new book ready for publication before 1948. The question therefore arises about copyright. To date, the books worth reprinting are--
Homage to Catalonia
Animal Farm
Critical Essays
Down & Out
Burmese Days
Coming Up for Air.1
The first three were originally published by Warburg himself, the other three by Gollancz. How does it stand about the re-issue of these three? Are the copyrights mine? My impression is that the copyrights reverted to me after two years, and I know that the copyright of the American edition of Burmese Days (actually the first edition of that book) is mine. The question arises first about Coming Up for Air, which has not been reprinted and which Warburg thinks it would be best to start with. Could you get in communication with him so that an agreement can be negotiated [?]
I think you were keeping for me some copies of the American edition of the Essays.2 If so I should be glad if you could send me them, as I have no copies of that book. Perhaps you could at the same time let me know the address of Harcourt Brace, to whom I want to write recommending a novel by a friend of mine which has been published here but not in the USA.
Yours sincerely
Eric Blair
[XVIII, 3100, pp. 453-4; typewritten]
1.Annotations made in Moore's office show that a letter was sent to Gollancz about the last three books on 29 October 1946. In the left-hand margin has been written 'R/R R/R their letter 21/4/43' against Down & Out and Burmese Days; and 'R.R. their 22/xi/41 letter' against Coming Up for Air. 'R/R' is also written in the margin against the reference to the American edition of Burmese Days. R.R. stands for Rights Reverted.
2.In the left-hand margin has been written '3 copies'.
Dwight Macdonald wrote to Orwell on 2 December 1946. He was still anxious to have something from Orwell for Politics, the circulation of which was dropping enough (from 5,500 in spring 1946 to its present 5,000) to cause a financial crisis. He referred to George Woodcock's article on Orwell in the latest number of Politics -'neither flattering nor the reverse', which was how he imagined Orwell would like his work considered.1 He had bought shoes for Orwell, at $8.95, which showed how the price had gone 'way up of late'. He wanted to know how they should be packed and whether Orwell needed shirts or sweaters, for example, into which they could be bundled and labelled as 'old clothes' to avoid pilfering. If they fitted, he would get him another pair; he feared American and English size twelves were not the same.2 He also reported that anti-Stalinist intellectuals of his acquaintance claimed that the parable of Animal Farm meant that revolution always ended badly for the underdog, 'hence to hell with it and hail the status quo'. He himself read the book as applying solely to Russia and not making any larger statement about the philosophy of revolution. 'I've been impressed with how many leftists I know make this criticism quite independently of each other--impressed because it didn't occur to me when reading the book and still doesn't seem correct to me. Which view would you say comes closer to your own intentions?'
To Dwight Macdonald*
5 December 1946
27B Canonbury Square,
Islington N 1
Dear Dwight,
I can't thank you enough about the shoes. I've written at once to my agent to see about getting the money to you. I suppose it would be better to see whether the first pair fits, though I think the American sizes are the same. Probably it would be all right if you did them up as old clothes as you said. But someone did tell me it was a good idea to send shoes in two separate parcels, then it's not worth anyone's while to pinch them, unless there happened to be a one-legged man on the dock.
Re. your query about Animal Farm
. Of course I intended it primarily as a satire on the Russian revolution. But I did mean it to have a wider application in so much that I meant that that kind of revolution (violent conspiratorial revolution, led by unconsciously power-hungry people) can only lead to a change of masters. I meant the moral to be that revolutions only effect a radical improvement when the masses are alert and know how to chuck out their leaders as soon as the latter have done their job. The turning-point of the story was supposed to be when the pigs kept the milk and apples for themselves (Kronstadt.3) If the other animals had had the sense to put their foot down then, it would have been all right. If people think I am defending the status quo, that is, I think, because they have grown pessimistic and assume that there is no alternative except dictatorship or laissez-faire capitalism. In the case of Trotskyists, there is the added complication that they feel responsible for events in the USSR up to about 1926 and have to assume that a sudden degeneration took place about that date. Whereas I think the whole process was foreseeable--and was foreseen by a few people, eg. Bertrand Russell--from the very nature of the Bolshevik party. What I was trying to say was, 'You can't have a revolution unless you make it for yourself; there is no such thing as a benevolent dictat[or]ship.'4
I am at present struggling with a radio version of the book, which is a ghastly difficult job and will take a long time. But after that I shall get back to a long article I am doing for Polemic, and possibly it might interest you for Politics. Any way I'll see that a copy gets to you first. It's on Tolstoy's essay on Shakespeare, which I expect you have read. I dare say you won't approve of what I say. I don't like Tolstoy, much as I used to like his novels. I believe George Woodcock is writing an attack on me for something I wrote in Polemic about Tolstoy, Swift and anarchism.5
I'm sorry about the circulation of Politics. You ought to be able to dispose of more copies over here, but I don't know how one sets about the distribution. Did I previously send you lists of possible subscribers? One thing I found when trying to circularise the Partisan Review was that people don't know whether there is a regular channel for paying for American magazines, so if you are canvassing people you ought to make this clear to them. Of course everyone has felt the draught a bit. Tribune's circulation has dropped over the past year, and I must say that during the last six months it has deserved to. However they've now got more paper and Kimche is back as editor, so I expect it will improve. The trouble was that with Labour in office they couldn't make up their minds whether to attack the government or not, especially as there are several Labour M.Ps on the board of directors. Also the paper had been given its main emphasis by Bevan who can now have nothing to do with it. By the way what you said about Tribune's attitude to the squatters was not fair. Of course they didn't want squatters shot, but one must realise that that kind of action simply interferes with re-housing. The later part of the squatting campaign, ie. siezuredeg of flats, was 'got up' by the Communists in order to make trouble and also in hopes of winning popularity for the coming municipal elections. They therefore led on a lot of unfortunate people, representing to them that they could get them houses, with the result that all these people lost their places in the housing queue. I imagine the heavy defeat the CP had in the municipal elections was partly a result of this.