George Orwell: A Life in Letters (10 page)

3
.
Shakespeare uses the word ‘nonpareil’ in five plays:
Twelfth Night
, 1.5.254;
Macbeth,
3.4.1
8;
Antony and Cleopatra
, 3.2.11;
Cymbeline
, 2.5.8; and
The Tempest
, 3.2.1
00. The play to which Orwell refers is unclear. In three the reference is to a woman who is, as in
Twelfth Night
, ‘the nonpareil of beauty’. Macbeth refers to one of the murderers as a nonpareil and Enobarbus so describes Caesar.

4
.
For English adopting American practices, see Orwell’s complaint of the use in English of ‘the American habit of tying an unnecessary preposition on to every verb’ (XVII, 2609, p. 31).

5
.
Orwell continued to be interested in nursery rhymes and fairy tales. His dramatisation of ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ was broadcast in the BBC’s
Children’s Hour
programme on 9 July 1946. Writing to Rayner Heppenstall* on 25 January 19
47 he described Cinderella as ‘the tops so far as fairy stories go’ (
XIX
, 3163, p. 32). And, of course,
Animal Farm
is subtitled by Orwell, ‘A Fairy Story’.

6
.
Orwell had taught at Frays College, Uxbridge, Middlesex until December 1933, when he developed pneumonia. He then gave up teaching.

To R. N. Raimbault*

3 January 1935

3 Warwick Mansions

Hampstead NW 3

Dear Monsieur Raimbault,

I wonder if you will forgive my writing in English this time, as I want to make sure that I do not make any misstatements?

Before anything else, I want to thank you very much for making such an extraordinarily good job of the translation of
Down and Out
. Without flattering you I can truthfully say that I am not only delighted but also greatly astonished to see how good it seems when translated. As to the Paris part, I honestly think it is better in French than in English, and I am delighted with the way you have done the conversations. Allowing for the fact that there are, naturally, a good many slang words that I don’t know, that is exactly how I imagined the characters talking. Let’s hope that the book will have a success proportionate to your efforts, and that we shan’t get into too much trouble with the hotel fraternity – for we must expect at any rate some trouble from them, I am afraid. If I am challenged to fight a duel by any hotel proprietor, perhaps you will second me.
¹

I have been through the proofs with great care and have made my corrections in pencil, as you asked. I have made alterations or suggestions [
references omitted here
]. As to the quarrel between the stevedore and the old age pensioner, I enclose herewith a copy of it with the blanks filled in and the words explained.
²
You will be able to use your judgement if you wish to rewrite that speech. In the one or two instances where I have written in the margin ‘it would be better to write so and so,’ I mean, of course, ‘something to that effect,’ as I know that what I suggest is not likely to be in perfect French. I have made my proof-corrections, by the way, in French. I hope you will be able to read and understand them.

I spoke to my agent, Mr Moore, about handing over the Italian rights of
Down and Out
and
Burmese Days
. He says that Mr. Amato may certainly have the Italian rights, only, in case of his finding any publisher willing to commission their translation into Italian, will he please communicate with Messrs. Christy and Moore Literary Agents 222 Strand London W.C. By the terms of my contract with him, I have to make all business arrangements through Mr
Moore.

Thanking you again, and wishing all success to the book when it appears, I am

Yours very sincerely

Eric A Blair

P. S. I will send the proofs under a separate cover.

[
LO
, pp. 38–40; X, 221C, p. 367; typewritten

with handwritten PS at head of letter]

1
.
Orwell was taken to task by M. Umberto Possenti, of the Hotel Splendide, 105 Piccadilly, London, in a letter to
The Times
(X, 159, pp. 301–2).

2
.
This does not appear to have survived. However, the French edition has a number of abusive readings which can be found in I, p. 226 at 138/11–
16.

To Victor Gollancz [Ltd?]*

10 January 1935

3 Warwick Mansions

Hampstead NW 3

Dear Sir,

I am returning the MS. of
A Clergyman’s Daughter
herewith. I think there is now nothing in it that could possibly be made the subject of an action for libel. None of the characters are intended as portraits of living individuals, nor are any of the names those of actual persons known to me. As to the localities described, they are imaginary. ‘Knype Hill’ is an imaginary name and so far as I know no place of that name exists; in the story it is mentioned as being in Suffolk, but that is all. In the hop-picking part (chapter 2) there is nothing whatever to indicate an exact locality. In Chapter 4 Southbridge is described as a suburb ten or a dozen miles of ° London, but there is now nothing to show which side of London it was. As to the reference to a shop called ‘Knockout Trousers Ltd.’ in Chapter 2, so far as I know there is no shop of any such name, and the house mentioned in the same part as being a refuge of prostitutes is again totally imaginary. It is stated to be somewhere off Lambeth Cut. Lambeth Cut is a longish street, but if this is still considered dangerous, I can easily change Lambeth Cut to a fictitious street in the proof. I enclose a note on the alterations, together with Mr Rubinstein’s letter, herewith.

Yours faithfully

Eric A. Blair
¹

[X, 223, pp. 367–8; typewritten]

1
.
Orwell’s list of changes required is omitted here. They include ‘Barclay’s Bank’ which becomes ‘the local bank’; a reference to
The Church Times
is cut; ‘Lambeth public library’ is changed to ‘the nearest public library’. Gollancz’s libel lawyer, Harold Rubinstein (1891–1975
), a perspicacious literary critic, playwright and author as well as a distinguished lawyer, crossed out the statement that
The High Churchman’s Gazette
had a ‘remarkable
°
small circulation’. Orwell said he was not aware there was such a journal but changed the offending passage to ‘a small and select circulation’. (See II, pp. 299–302 for pre-publication revisions, 1934–35.) New information about these changes has emerged and is included here in the appendix New Textual Discoveries.

To Brenda Salkeld*

Tuesday [15 January 1935]

3 Warwick Mansions

Hampstead NW 3

Dear Brenda,

Thanks for your letter. No, I cannot say that Havelock Ellis’s signature, as I remember it, struck me as being at all like what I expected.
¹
I should have expected him to write a very fine hand and use a thinner nib. We bought recently a lot of books with the authors’ signatures in, and some of them containing autograph letters as well, but they were all sold almost at once. One that pleased me was inscribed ‘From Beverley Nicholls, in all humility.’ There is a subtle humour in that. I often see autographed letters advertised among the lots at book-auctions. I remember distinctly that in one case a letter from Sheila Kaye-Smith was priced higher than one from Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough (the Queen Anne one.) You often see autographs of Napoleon advertised, but they are usually pretty expensive, and of course they are not letters, only documents signed by him. Towards the end of his life he never seems to have written anything except his signature with his own hand, and apparently his spelling was appalling. I haven’t done much to my new novel,
²
but I have written a poem that is to be part of it.
³
Talking of choosing a new pseudonym, I think it would be rather amusing, as so many women writers have chosen male pseudonyms, to choose a female one. Miss Barbara Bedworthy or something like that. With portrait of the author on the jacket. I have been feeling horribly tired, as for a variety of reasons I have been keeping very bad hours lately. On Sunday night I came away from a friend’s house late, found there were no sort of conveyances running, had to walk several miles through drizzling rain, and then, to crown all, found myself locked out and had to raise hell before I could wake anybody up and get in. Have you ever seen Fowler’s
Modern English Usage
?
⁴
Fowler is the man who did, or at any rate contributed to, the small Oxford dictionary, and he is a great authority on syntax etc. He is very amusing about such things as the split infinitive. I was also reading a rather amusing pamphlet on Dr Watson, which proved among other things, from internal evidence, that Watson was married twice. Also one or two of D. H. Lawrence’s short stories, also Max Beerbohm’s
And Even Now
, also, for the I don’t know how many-th time, Maupassant’s
Boule de Suif
⁵
and
La Maison Tellier
. I suppose you have read both of those? I must stop now. I hope this letter will be duly waiting for you when you arrive and that you will not be in too unbearably depressed a state. Try and come up to town some time during the term and we will meet. Good bye for the present.

Yours

Eric A. Blair

[X, 224, pp. 368–9; typewritten]

1
.
Salkeld was then collecting autographs and Orwell was finding them for her.

2
.
Keep the Aspidistra Flying
.

3
.
‘St Andrew’s Day, 1935’, printed in
The Adelphi
in November 1935 and
in
Keep the Aspidistra Flying
, pp. 167–8, with two word changes but untitled.

4
.
A Dictionary of Modern English Usage
, by H. W. Fowler, was first published in April 1926 and is still not fully superseded.

5
.
In September 1
946 Orwell proposed to the BBC that he dramatise this story (XVIII, 3059, p. 386). The proposal was rejected (XVIII, 3095, n. 2, p. 448).

To Brenda Salkeld*

16 February 1935

Booklovers’ Corner

Dearest Brenda,

Isn’t it sickening, I can’t keep the room I am in at present for more than a few weeks.
¹
It was let to me on the understanding that I should have to give it up if somebody offered to take it & another room that are° beside it together, & now somebody has done so. So I shall have fresh miseries of house-hunting, & probably shan’t find another place where I shall be so comfortable & have so much freedom. My present landlady
²
is the non-interfering sort, which is so rare among London landladies. When I came she asked me what I particularly wanted, I said ‘The thing I most want is freedom.’ So she said, ‘Do you want to have women up here all night?’ I said, ‘No,’ of course, whereat she said, ‘I only meant that I didn’t mind whether you do or not.’ Not much is happening here.

Gollancz, who has re-read
Burmese Days
, wrote enthusiastically about it & said he was going to have it thoroughly vetted by his lawyer, after which the latter was to cross-examine me on all the doubtful points. I hope the lawyer doesn’t report against it as he did last time. You notice that all this happened a year ago, & I do not know what has made G. change his mind again. Perhaps some other publisher has wiped his eye by publishing a novel about India, but I don’t seem to remember any this year. Rees
* got me a lot more signatures for you, which I will send when I can find them, but at present I have mislaid them. I am living a busy life at present. My time-table is as follows: 7 am get up, dress etc, cook & eat breakfast. 8.45 go down & open the shop, & I am usually kept there till about 9.45. Then come home, do out my room, light the fire etc. 10.30 am—1 pm I do some writing. 1 pm get lunch & eat it. 2 pm—6.30 pm I am at the shop. Then I come home, get my supper, do the washing up & after that sometimes do about an hour’s work. In spite [of] all this, I have got more work done in the last few days than during weeks before when I was being harried all day long. I hope G.
does
publish
Burmese Days
, as apart from the money (& my agent has tied him down with a pretty good contract) it will tide over the very long interval there is going to be between
A Clergyman’s Daughter
& the one I am writing now.
³
I want this one to be a work of art, & that can’t be done without much bloody sweat. My mother writes me that she isn’t going away after all, so I will come down to S’wold for a week-end as soon as I can, but it will have to be when my employer’s wife is up & about again. Write soon.

With much love

Eric

[X, 23
5, pp. 374–5; typewritten]

1
.
By ‘more than a few weeks’ Orwell was not referring to a few weeks more, but to the total time he had been able to spend in the Westropes’ flat.