George Orwell: A Life in Letters (6 page)

To Brenda Salkeld*

Sunday [September 1932]

The Hawthorns

Dearest Brenda

I am writing as I promised, but can’t guarantee an even coherent letter, for a female downstairs is making the house uninhabitable by playing hymn-tunes on the piano, which, in combination with the rain outside & a dog yapping somewhere down the road, is rapidly qualifying me for the mental home. I hope you got home safely & didn’t find the door barred against you. I reached home just on the stroke of midnight. It was ever so nice seeing you again & finding that you were pleased to see me, in spite of my hideous prejudice against your sex, my obsession about R.C.s, etc.

I have spent a most dismal day, first in going to Church, then in reading the
Sunday Times
, which grows duller & duller, then in trying to write a poem which won’t go beyond the first stanza, then in reading through the rough draft of my novel,
¹
which depresses me horribly. I really don’t know which is the more stinking, the
Sunday Times
or the
Observer
. I go from one to the other like an invalid turning from side to side in bed & getting no comfort whichever way he turns. I thought the
Observer
would be a little less dull when Squire
²
stopped infesting it, but they seem deliberately to seek out the dullest people they can get to review the dullest books. By the way, if you are by any chance wanting to impose a penance upon yourself, I should think you might try Hugh Walpole’s recent 800-page novel.
³

I hope you will read one or two of those books I mentioned to you.
⁴
By the way, I forgot to mention, what I think you told me before you had not read, Dr Garnett’s (not Richard or Edward Garnett)
The Twilight of the Gods
.
⁵
If you haven’t read that, it’s a positive duty to do so. The story the title is taken from is far from being the best, but some of the others, such as ‘The Purple Head’ are excellent. I suppose you have read Mark Twain’s
Life on the Mississippi
? And J. S. Haldane’s
Possible Worlds
? And Guy Boothby’s
Dr Nikola
? And Mrs Sherwood’s
The Fairchild Family
? All these are in different ways a little off the track (
Dr Nikola
is a boy’s sixpenny thriller, but a first rate one) & I can recommend all of them. H. L. Mencken’s book
In Defence of Women
would probably be amusing, but I haven’t read it. I see Wyndham Lewis (
not
D. B. Wyndham Lewis, a stinking RC) has just brought out a book called
Snooty Baronet
, apparently a novel of sorts. It might be interesting. All I’ve ever read of his was a queer periodical called
The Enemy
, & odd articles, but he’s evidently got some kick in him—whether at all a sound thinker or not, I can’t be sure without further acquaintance. The copy of
The Enemy
I read was all a ferocious attack, about the length of an average novel, on Gertrude Stein—rather wasted energy, one would say.

Well, au revoir, for I have really no news. I will write again in a week or so & hope I shall then be in a more cheerful mood. I hope you will not have too unbearable a term—

With much love

Eric

[X, 142, pp. 268–9; handwritten]

1
.
Burmese Days
.

2
.
John C. Squire (1884–1958; Kt., 1933), journalist, essayist, poet, and literary editor of the
New Statesman and Nation
, 1913–19, founded the
London Mercury
and edited it, 1919–34. He also edited the English Men of Letters series.

3
.
The Fortress
.

4
.
For books Orwell recommended to Brenda Salkeld in the 1930s, as reported to Howard Fink, see X, pp. 308–9.
The Twilight of the Gods
and
Dr Nikola
are included in his list.

5
.
Dr Richard Garnett (1835–1906) was a librarian and author. His
Twilight of the Gods and Other Tales
was published in 1888 and augmented in 1903; the stories were described as ‘cynical apologues’.

To Eleanor Jaques*

Wed. night [19 October 1932]

The Hawthorns

Dearest Eleanor,

I am glad to hear you had a nice time on the broads, even tho’ the motor boat was not too docile. I have been unutterably busy & am half exhausted already. I am going up to town for a night or two on the 28
^th
—intend going out on to the Embankment that night to see how the sleepers-out get on at this time of year. Is there any chance of your being up in town by then? And when you
are
coming up, what will your adress° be? We simply must meet if it can be managed.

The papers this morning report quite serious rioting in Lambeth round the City Hall.
¹
It was evidently
food
-rioting, as the bakers’ shops were looted. That points to pretty serious conditions & there may be hell to pay in the winter if things are as bad as that already. I expect, tho’, just enough will be done to prevent anything violent happening. I know the quarter where it happened so well—I dare say some of my friends took part in it.

I was sorry to hear about poor old Crick
²
being run in over the entertainment tax tickets—another sign of the bad times of course. I hope people in the town aren’t being beastly to him about it? I heard from Denis Collings the other day, asking me to go & stay with him at Cambridge at the half term. I would have liked to, but it is hard for me to get away, & there are, tho’ I did not tell him so, two or three people at Cambridge whom I’m not anxious to meet. By the way, if you see the Pulleynes (
do
they spell their name like that? I’m never sure) any time, I would be awfully obliged if you would get from them a ms. of mine they have describing some adventures last Xmas. It’s not very interesting but Brenda Salkeld is anxious to see it & I’d take it very kindly if you would send it to her—I hope it would not be too much trouble? Don’t let your parents see the ms.,
³
as it has bad words in it. My novel
⁴
is making just a little progress. I see now more or less what will have to be done to it when the rough draft is finished, but the longness° & complicatedness are terrible. I‘ve done no other writing, except part of a mucky play the boys are to act later.
⁵
I am told that there was a letter in the
New Statesman
some weeks back, attacking me for an article I’d written for them.
⁶
So annoying—I never saw it, & not to reply to an attack looks as tho’ one admitted being wrong, which I’m sure I wasn’t there in any major fact. I take in the
Church Times
regularly now & like it more every week. I do so like to see that there is life in the old dog yet—I mean in the poor old C. of E. I shall have to go to Holy Communion soon, hypocritical tho’ it is, because my curate friend is bound to think it funny if I always go to Church but never communicate. What is the procedure? I have almost forgotten it. As far as I remember you go up to the rail & kneel down, but I don’t remember whether there are any responses to make. You have to go fasting, do you not? And what about being in mortal sin? I wish you would prompt me. It seems rather mean to go to H.C. when one doesn’t believe, but I have passed myself off for pious & there is nothing for it but to keep up the deception.

Dearest Eleanor, it was so nice of you to say that you looked back to your days with me with pleasure. I hope you will let me make love to you again some time, but if you don’t it doesn’t matter, I shall always be grateful to you for your kindness to me. Write soon & let me know your news, & above all if & when you are coming up to town. By the way, the other day I saw a man— Communist, I suppose—selling the
Daily Worker
,
⁷
& I went up to him & said, ‘Have you the
D.W
.?’—He: ‘Yes, sir.’ Dear old England!

With love

Eric

[X, 145, pp. 270–1; handwritten]

1
.
Should be County Hall. The extensive rioting in the Lambeth area of London on Tuesday, 18 October 1932, was described in the
Brixton Free Press
of 21 October under the headline ‘Police Charge Riotous Unemployed.’ (See Thompson, p. 34.) Shops were looted, police were attacked, and dozens of rioters were arrested. There were also demonstrations near St Thomas’s Hospital, at St George’s Circus, and in Murphy Street, a march from Brixton to the Public Assistance Commission in Brook Street on Thursday, 20 October and from 27 to 30 October there were serious clashes in central London to protest against unemployment.

2
.
Crick was the proprietor of the local cinema at Southwold, where Orwell’s father attended every new film (see letter to Brenda Salkeld, late August 1934). Entertainment tax was first levied on 1 August 1918 as a wartime measure, but it was continued thereafter.

3
.
‘Clink’, X, 135, pp. 254–60. It describes Orwell’s deliberate and successful attempt to get himself sent to prison in order to enlarge his experience. It was unpublished in his lifetime.

4
.
Burmese Days
.

5
.
King Charles II
, performed by the boys of The Hawthorns, Christmas 1932. The text is to be found at X, 154, pp. 277–94. It is anything but ‘mucky’: this is simply Orwell typically denigrating his work. A 40-page, lavishly-illustrated edition of the play was published by the Bellona Press, Warsaw, in 2000, translated by Dr Bartek Zborski.

6
.
The article was ‘Common Lodging Houses’ (X, 141, pp. 265–7). The letter was from Theodore Fyfe who described himself as an architect who had worked for the London County Council on the construction of lodging houses. He thought the L.C.C. was ‘worthy of all praise’.

7
.
The
Daily Worker
represented Communist Party views and policies, 1 January 1930 to 23 April 1966; incorporated in the
Morning Star
from 25 April 1966. It was suppressed by government order 22 January 1941 to 6 September 1942.

To Leonard Moore*

Sat.
¹
[19 November 1932]

The Hawthorns

Dear Mr Moore,

Many thanks for your letter. I sent off the proof with the printer’s queries on it yesterday. I made a few alterations & added one or two footnotes, but I think I arranged it so that there would be no need of ‘over-running’.
²
I will send on the other proof as soon as possible.

As to a pseudonym, the name I always use when tramping etc. is P. S. Burton,
³
but if you don’t think this sounds a probable kind of name, what about

Kenneth Miles,

George Orwell,

H. Lewis Allways.

I rather favour George Orwell.
⁴

I would rather not promise to have the other book
⁵
ready by the summer. I could certainly do it by then if I were not teaching, but in this life I can’t
settle
to any work, & at present particularly I am rushed off my feet. I have got to produce a school play, & I have not only had to write it, but I have got to do all the rehearsing &, worst of all, make most of the costumes.
⁶
The result is that I have practically no leisure.

I should like very much to come out & see you & Mrs Moore some time. I can get to Gerrard’s Cross quite easily from here, but I have unfortunately forgotten your home adress°. Perhaps you could let me know it? I could come over some Sunday afternoon—Sunday the 4
^th
Dec.,
⁷
for instance, if you would be at home then?

Yours sincerely

Eric A. Blair

P.S. [
at top of letter
] As to the
title
of the book. Would ‘The Confessions of a Dishwasher’ do as well? I would
rather
answer to ‘dishwasher’ than ‘down and out’, but if you and Mr G[ollancz] think the present title best for selling purposes, then it is better to stick to it.

[X, 148, p. 274; handwritten]

1
.
This undated letter, as for a number of others, can be placed from the receipt stamp used in Moore’s office. The use of this evidence is not again mentioned.

2
.
Before electronic setting with its automatic re-lineation, print was set in lead type and changes affecting lineation were troublesome and very time-consuming – hence, expensive.

3
.
In ‘Clink’ Orwell writes that he had the name Edward Burton put down on the charge sheet. He also used the name Burton for a character in his play
King Charles II.

4
.
In the BBC radio broadcast about the magazine
The Adelphi
, 6 July 1958, produced by Rayner Heppenstall, Sir Richard Rees recalled Orwell’s fear of his real name appearing in print. In
George Orwell: Fugitive from the Camp of Victory
, Rees elaborated on this: Orwell had told him that it ‘gave him an unpleasant feeling to see his real name in print because “how can you be sure your enemy won’t cut it out and work some kind of black magic on it?” Whimsy, of course; but even Orwell’s genuine streak of old-fashioned conventionality sometimes bordered on whimsy and you could not always be quite certain if he was serious or not’ (p. 44).

5
.
Burmese Days
.

6
.
Compare Dorothy in
A Clergyman’s Daughter.

7
.
In a letter to Eleanor Jaques of 30 November he said he was going to ‘see some people at Gerrard’s Cross’.

To Brenda Salkeld*

Saturday [? June 1933]