George Orwell: A Life in Letters (44 page)

Yours sincerely,

Geo. Orwell

[XVI, 2471, pp. 190–2; typewritten]

1
.and
2
.
Foreshadowings of
Nineteen Eighty-Four.

3
.
Compare
Nineteen Eighty-Four
, p. 72, ‘If there is hope, wrote Winston, it lies in the proles’.

To Leonard Moore*

8 June 1944

10a Mortimer Crescent NW
6

Dear Mr Moore,

Many thanks for your letter.
¹
It is awkward about Gollancz. I don’t however remember anything in that contract about
full-length
novels. As I remember it, it simply referred to my next three works of fiction (you could verify that from the contract.) If so,
Animal Farm
which is certainly a work of fiction (and any way what is ‘full-length’) would be one of them. But even so there is one more novel to be accounted for. Do you think it would be possible to arrange with Cape that Gollancz had the refusal of my next novel (or two novels if
Animal Farm
doesn’t count), on the understanding that all other works went to Cape, including novels after the Gollancz contract ran out? In that case I should only be going away from Cape for one or at most two books. (Incidentally, I don’t know when I shall write another novel. This doesn’t seem a propitious time for them.) I shouldn’t in any case go to Gollancz again for non-fiction books. His politics change too fast for me to keep up with them. Could you find out what Cape thinks about that?

Meanwhile how do we stand about the book of reprints? Cape could have that too if he wants it. But the Dickens essay, which I should
like
to reprint, was in a Gollancz book. Has he the copyright of that, or have I? I have only one more essay to do, then I can start assembling the book.

I am sorry about
Keep the Aspidistra Flying
, but I don’t think it worth reprinting a book I don’t care about. If you tell Lane’s I don’t want that one done I dare say they’ll be readier to close with
Coming up for Air
.
²

I hope it will be O.K. with Cape and this book won’t have to start on its rounds once again. I do want it to see the light this year if possible.

Yours sincerely

E. A. Blair

[XVI, 2485, pp. 250–1; typewritten]

1
.
Jonathan Cape wrote to Victor Gollancz on 26 May 1944 to say that he was inclined to publish
Animal Farm
, and to publish Orwell’s future work. He wished to know whether that would be acceptable to Gollancz. On 1 June, Gollancz wrote to Moore, pointing out that he had a contract dated 1 February 1937 to publish three novels by Orwell, only one of which,
Coming Up for Air
, had been delivered. He argued that his rejection of
Animal Farm
did not affect that agreement. Moore then wrote to Orwell—his letter has not been traced—and this is Orwell’s response.

2
.
Penguin Books did not publish
Coming Up for Air
in Orwell’s lifetime. It was reprinted in the first of Secker’s Uniform series in May 1948.

To Leonard Moore*

24
June 1944

10a Mortimer Crescent NW 6

Dear Mr Moore,

It is a pity about Cape’s.
¹
I rang up T. S. Eliot, telling him the circumstances, and shall give him the other copy of the MS on Monday. I have no doubt Eliot himself would be on my side in this matter, but, as he says, he might not be able to swing the rest of the board of Faber’s.

About the contract with Gollancz. If 30,000 words is not ‘full-length’, what does amount to full-length? Is an actual amount of words named in our existing contract?
²
If not, could we get from Gollancz a definite statement as to what he considers a full-length work of fiction. It is clearly very unsatisfactory to have this clause in the contract without a clear definition of it.

Yours sincerely

Eric Blair

[XVI, 2494, pp. 265–6; typewritten]

1
.
Jonathan Cape wrote to Victor Gollancz on 26 May 1944 to say that he was inclined to publish
Animal Farm
.
His principal reader, Daniel George, and C. V. Wedgwood, then working for Cape, both strongly urged publication. However, on 1
9 June 1944, Cape wrote to Leonard Moore to say he would not publish the book. He did have some anxiety about Orwell having to offer his next two works of fiction to Gollancz, but the basis for the rejection was the representation made to him by ‘an important official in the Ministry of Information’ whom he had consulted. He had come to the conclusion that it would be ‘highly ill-advised to publish [it] at the present time’, partly because it was not a generalised attack on dictatorships but was aimed specifically at the Soviets, and partly because the ‘choice of pigs as the ruling caste’ would be especially offensive. (Crick gives the full text of this letter, with background details, pp. 454–56.) Inez Holden, in a letter to Ian Angus of 27 May 1967, summarised Cape’s reason for the rejection and Orwell’s reaction: ‘He said he couldn’t publish that as he was afraid “Stalin wouldn’t like it”. George was amused at this. I will quote what he said on this: “Imagine old Joe (who doesn’t know one word of any European language) sitting in the Kremlin reading
Animal Farm
and saying ‘I don’t like this’”’. It is now known that the ‘important official in the Ministry of Information’ was Peter Smollett, the alias for Peter Smolka, an Austrian who had come to England in the 1930s and was a Soviet spy, codename ‘Abo’. Smollett’s deception was so successful that he was not only appointed OBE by a grateful Britain, but the Soviets thought he had been turned and came to disregard him (see
The Lost Orwell
, pp. 207, 210–12).

2
.
Annotated in Moore’s office: ‘Agreement only states “full-length.”’

To T. S. Eliot*

28 June 1944

10a Mortimer Crescent NW 6

(or
Tribune
CEN 2572)

Dear Eliot,

This Ms.
¹
has been blitzed which accounts for my delay in delivering it & its slightly crumpled condition, but it is not damaged in any way.

I wonder if you could be kind enough to let me have Messrs. Faber’s decision fairly soon. If they are interested in seeing more of my work, I could let you have the facts about my existing contract with Gollancz, which is not an onerous one nor likely to last long.

If you read this
MS
. yourself you will see its meaning which is not an acceptable one at this moment, but I could not agree to make any alterations except a small one at the end which I intended making any way. Cape or the
MOI
, I am not certain which from the wording of his letter, made the imbecile suggestion that some other animal than the pigs might be made to represent the Bolsheviks. I could not of course make any change of that description.

Yours sincerely

Geo. Orwell

Could you have lunch with me one of the days when you are in town?

[XVI, 2496, p. 269; handwritten]

1
.
Of
Animal Farm
. The Orwells’ flat was bombed on the very day he dated his letter to Eliot.

To John Middleton Murry*

14 July 1944

Tribune

Dear Murry,

Thanks for your letter
¹
. I have not the text by me, but you wrote in an article in the
Adelphi
something that ran more or less as follows:

‘We are in the habit of describing the war between Japan and China as though it were a war in the European sense. But it is nothing of the kind, because the average Chinese expects to be conquered. That is what the history of thousands of years has taught him to expect. China will absorb Japan, and Japan will energise China. And so also with India.’

If this is not praise and encouragement of the Japanese invasion of China, and an invitation to the Japanese to go on and invade India, I don’t know what it is. It takes no account of what has been happening in China since 1912 and uses exactly the same argument (‘these people are used to being conquered’) that was always brought forward to justify our own rule in India. In any case its moral is, ‘don’t help the Chinese’

As to the general charge of ‘praising violence’ which your correspondent refers to. Many remarks you have made in recent years seem to me to imply that you don’t object to violence if it is violent enough. And you certainly seem or seemed to me to prefer the Nazis to ourselves, at least so long as they appeared to be winning.

If you’ll send the book along I’ll naturally be glad to give it a notice, but I
might
have to turn it over to someone else, though I’ll do it myself if possible. I am smothered under work, and also I’ve been bombed out and we have a very young baby,
²
all of which adds to one’s work.

Yours,

George Orwell

[XVI, 2509, p. 288; typewritten]

1
.
On 11 July 1945, Murry wrote to Orwell saying that a correspondent (possibly Dr Alfred Salter, 1873–1945, a sponsor of the Peace Pledge Union) had asked him to comment on Orwell’s statement in a review that Murry had praised the Japanese invasion of China. Murry told Orwell that he was ‘given to taking pot-shots’ at him and suggested instead that he tackle him frankly by reviewing his latest book,
Adam and Eve
.

2
.
The Orwells had adopted Richard Blair (born 14 May 1944 in Greenwich) in June. Orwell reviewed
Adam and Eve
in the
Manchester Evening News
on 19 October 1944 (XVI, 2
565, pp. 432–4). Although not without criticism it concludes, ‘This is an interesting book and a good antidote to the current notion that we should all be perfectly happy if we could get rid of Hitler and then go back to 1939 with shorter working hours and no unemployment.’

To Rayner Heppenstall*

21 July 1944

Tribune

Dear Rayner,

Herewith that book.
¹
About 600 words perhaps? I’d like you very much to draw little Richard’s horoscope.
²
He was born on May 14th. I thought I had told you, however, that he is an adopted child. Does that make any difference to the horoscope? Don’t forget to look me up if you do get to town. The above is the safest address for the time being.

Yours

Eric

[XVI, 2515, p. 295; typewritten]

1
.
Presumably
Stephen Hero,
to which Orwell refers, 17 July 1944 (XVI,
2511, pp. 290–1).

2
.
Heppenstall had offered to cast this horoscope and sent it on 14 October but said he seemed to have lost the technique and feeling for casting a horoscope (XVI, 2558, n. 2, p. 420).

When Richard was adopted in June, Eileen gave up her job at the Ministry of Food. Orwell told Leonard Moore that the flat in Canonbury Square, which the Orwells were to rent, would be theirs on 1 September but they would probably move in only on 9 September, although it proved to be later. In the following letter, Eileen writes, ‘When and if Richard comes’; he was therefore not then living with them. It is possible that the reason for the journey north was to see Richard at the O’Shaughnessy family home near Stockton-on-Tees. Although Eileen had left the Ministry of Food when she wrote this letter, she evidently still had some of the Ministry’s headed paper.

Eileen* to Lydia Jackson*

Wednesday [9? August
1944]

Ministry of Food

Portman Court

Portman Square

London W 1

Dear Lydia,

I didn’t know where to write to you and indeed I don’t know whether this is a very good idea because one of Gwen’s letters to Florrie took ten days in transit. However we’ll
hope
.

So far as I can see the cottage is going to repeat its Disney act.
Two
babies are now supposed to be going into residence, one with a mother and father the other with a mother (fortunately the father is in Normandy or somewhere). I pity them but it’s satisfactory to have the space so well used. Mrs. Horton
¹
has seen the space now so it’s her responsibility. And about that, I thought I might come down for an hour or two while you’re there and pack away some of our oddments—papers chiefly. I’ve arranged that the old tin trunk can stay locked but I think it would be a good idea to put it in the bottom of the larder (if it’ll go) and also that the linen chest will be used for our things or yours. They’re providing their own linen of course and will bring it in something in which it can be kept. I expect they will move most of the furniture about and the two passage rooms will go into use again. By the way, do you . . .° (There was a long interruption on the telephone and I can’t at all remember what this important enquiry was.)