George Orwell: A Life in Letters (63 page)

As to books, I have only got a very little way with a novel which I hope to finish about the end of 1947, if too many things don’t intervene. I don’t really know how I stand about contracts with French publishers. Several books of mine are now being translated or have recently been translated, and I don’t know whether I have exclusive agreements with any of the publishers. In any case, I don’t like making arrangements before a book is written because I think it puts a hoodoo on it.

I have just read
Thieves in the Night
,
²
which I could not get hold of before. I enjoyed reading it, but you know my views, or at any rate Arthur knows my views about this terrorism business. You might just tell Arthur from me that his ideas about the prevalence of circumcision are quite incorrect. So far from stamping anyone as Jewish, this practice used at any rate to be so common, especially among the richer classes, that a boy at a public school felt embarrassed at swimming pools and so forth if he was not circumcised. I believe it is getting less common now, but is also commoner among the working classes. I have a good mind to put a piece about this in my column some time.
³

I am glad you liked the radio version of
Animal Farm
. Most people seemed to, and it got quite a good press. I had the feeling that they had spoilt it, but one nearly always does with anything one writes for the air.

Richard is very well, and is talking distinctly more.

With love,

George

[XIX, 3159, pp. 27–8; typewritten]

1
.
The Koestlers preferred coffee, hence their being able to spare some of their tea ration for him.

2
.
A novel, about the Zionist struggle to set up an independent Jewish state in Palestine, by Mamaine’s husband, Arthur Koestler, published in 1946.

3
.
There is no such discussion in the ‘As I Please’ columns.

To Rayner Heppenstall*

25 January
1947

27B Canonbury Square,

Islington N 1

Dear Rayner,

Thanks for your letter. Re.
Animal Farm
.
¹
I had a number of people here to listen to it on the first day, and they all seemed to think it was good, and Porteous,
²
who had not read the book, grasped what was happening after a few minutes. I also had one or two fan letters and the press notices were good except on my native ground, ie.
Tribune
. As to what I thought myself, it’s hard to get a detached view, because whenever I write anything for the air I have the impression it has been spoiled, owing to its inevitably coming out different to one’s conception of it. I must say I don’t agree about there being too much narrator. If anything I thought there should have been more explanation. People are always yearning to get rid of the narrator, but it seems to me that until certain problems have been overcome you only get rid of the narrator at the expense of having to play a lot of stupid tricks in order to let people know what is happening. The thing is to make the narrator a good turn in himself. But that means writing serious prose, which people don’t, and making the actors stick to it instead of gagging and trying to make everything homey and naturalistic.

I can’t write or promise to write anything more at present, I am too busy. I’ve still got ideas about fairy stories. I wish they would dig up and re-b’cast my adaptation of the
Emperor’s New Clothes
. It was done on the Eastern and African services, but in those days I wasn’t well-connected enough to crash the Home. I expect the discs would have been scraped,°
however. I had them illicitly re-recorded at a commercial studio, but that lot of discs got lost. I’ve often pondered over ‘Cinderella’, which of course is the tops so far as fairy stories go but on the face of it is too visual to be suitable for the air. But don’t you think one could make the godmother turn her into a wonderful singer who could sing a higher note than anyone else, or something of that kind? The best way would be if she had a wonderful voice but could not sing in tune, like Trilby, and the godmother cured this. One could make it quite comic with the wicked sisters singing in screeching voices. It might be worth talking over some time. Give my love to Margaret.

Yours

Eric
³

[XIX, 3163, pp. 32–3; typewritten]

1
.
Heppenstall had written on 24 January 1947 asking for Orwell’s conclusions about the broadcast of
Animal Farm
.
He said that the opinion at the
BBC
, with which he agreed, was that ‘there were too many lengthy pieces of narration—that in fact the adaptation was not sufficiently ruthless and complete’. He asked also whether Orwell had further ideas for the Third Programme, for instance, ‘any Imaginary Conversation’ and whether he wanted more scripts of
Animal Farm
.

2
.
Hugh Gordon Porteous (1906–1
993), literary and art critic and sinologist. In 1933 he remarked, ‘Verse will be worn longer this season and rather red,’ blaming Auden for being the reddening agent (Valentine Cunningham,
British Writers of the Thirties
, 1988, p. 27). He reviewed extensively, especially for T. S. Eliot in
The Criterion
in the thirties and
The Listener
in the sixties.

3
.
Heppenstall replied on 29 January 1947. He was anxious to convince Orwell ‘about this business of narration’. He did not agree that narration could be avoided only by resorting to ‘a lot of stupid tricks’. Narration involved ‘a very marked change of pace…straight reading and…dramatic presentation don’t mix’. He said he would never allow an actor to gag (
ad lib
). He thought the fairy stories should ‘follow Red Riding Hood to
Children’s Hour
’ unless Orwell had something more sophisticated in mind. His wife hoped Orwell would ‘presently come to supper’. He had seen Richard Rees for the first time since the outbreak of the war and remarked how greatly he had aged. The second page of this letter has not been traced.

To Leonard Moore*

21 February 1947

27B Canonbury Square

Islington N 1

Dear Moore,

With reference to your two letters of the 18th and the 19th.

I don’t think the offer to dramatise
Animal Farm
sounds very promising, in fact I don’t see what we get out of it except that there would then be a dramatic version existing, which I suppose would make it slightly more likely to reach the stage. But we would also be tied down to that particular adaptor, at least for a year, and somebody else might make a more inviting offer in the mean time, though I am bound to say I do not think it is a suitable book to adapt for stage production. One doesn’t, of course, know what sort of version he and his collaborator would make, but from the fact of his referring to the book as ‘The’
Animal Farm
I assume he has not read it very attentively. I don’t think I should close with him.
¹

I have meanwhile received a cable from some people in New York enquiring about film rights. I hope I shall have got you on the phone before this letter reaches you, but if not I will send the cable on with another letter.

As to Warburg. I want Warburg to become my regular publisher, because, although he may not sell the books so largely, I can trust him to publish whatever I write. At the same time we must settle this business about the uniform edition, as I don’t see much point in simply re-issuing, in different formats, various books which have already appeared and therefore can’t be expected to sell large numbers straight off. I had understood that what was intended was to produce all the books involved as paper became available in a uniform binding and at rather a low price—though I suppose not always the same price as some are much longer than others. But as to the variation in length, it is in most cases only between about 80,000 and about 50,000. The exception is
Animal Farm
(30,000), but I suppose he wouldn’t work round to this till last, and one might put something else with it to bring it up to the right length. As to your query about cheap editions, I am not quite sure what is involved there. Is it a question of whether Warburg has all rights for cheap editions as well? I imagine the only reprint firm likely to do any of my books is the Penguin Library, which has already done two. I presume Warburg wouldn’t object to a book being Penguinised, as I shouldn’t think this cuts across ordinary sales much.

Do you think you could get this fixed up with Warburg as soon as possible[?] Tell him that I am fully ready for him to be my regular publisher, but that I want the following conditions:

(i) That though he may, if he wishes, issue ordinary editions of any books, he will also undertake to do a uniform edition which will include the six books we have agreed on and any suitable future books.

(ii) That though I will give him first refusal of all full-length books, I can if I choose do odd jobs for other publishers, such as introductions, contributions to miscellanies, etc.

Even if we can’t draw up a full agreement immediately, I would like some settlement to be made as soon as possible about
Coming Up for Air
. Warburg proposed to do this as the first of the re-issues, and he says that if the matter can be settled quickly he might get it onto his March paper quota. I would like this to happen, because I shall not have anything ready to be published before
1948 and it would not be a bad idea to have something appearing this year. Also I think that book was rather sunk by appearing just before the outbreak of war, and it is now very completely out of print.
²

Yours sincerely

Eric Blair

[XIX, 3173, pp. 47–9; typewritten]

1
.
Details of this proposal have not been traced. A dramatised version, with music and lyrics, directed by Peter Hall, was given with great success at the National Theatre on
25 April 1984. In 1985 it toured nine cities.

2
.
Moore wrote to Warburg on 27 February 1947 quoting much of this letter. Moore concludes with a reminder that Gollancz has an option on Orwell’s next two novels: ‘It may be, however, we can make some arrangement regarding this.’ This was eventually agreed.

To Dwight Macdonald*

26 February 1947

27B Canonbury Square

Islington N 1

Dear Dwight,

Thanks awfully for sending the shoes which arrived today. I trust they have sent you the money for them—I wrote to my agent to remind him to do this and he said he had done so. I am sorry to say they were too small after all,
however it doesn’t matter because I recently managed to get another pair owing to somebody who takes the same size ordering a pair about a year ago and not wanting them when done. I shall send this pair on to Germany where doubtless they will be appreciated.

I wanted to ask, when you print the excerpt from the Tolstoy article,
¹
if you’re paying for it, could you pay the money to my American agents, Mcintosh & Otis. I’m trying to let any money I earn in the
USA
pile up over there in case I ever make a visit there. I don’t know whether I shall do so, but even if I don’t, I’m not short of money at present and might as well let it lie there as pay British income tax on it.

It’s been a lousy winter here what with the fuel breakdown and this unheard-of weather. I suppose conditions here are now what would be normal postwar winter conditions in, say, Paris.
Polemic
were very pleased with the long note you gave them in
Politics.
I think the paper is now taking shape a bit, and it is doing fairly well from the point of view of circulation, though hampered by the usual organisational difficulties. I have now joined the editorial board, but I probably shan’t do much on it as I am going back to Scotland in April and shall go on with a novel which I am doing and hope to finish by the end of 1947. While in London I have been snowed up with hackwork as usual. This two-weeks’ closure of the weeklies
²
has meant an awful lot of nuisance and incidentally lost
Tribune
a lot of money it can ill afford.

Yours

George

[XIX, 3175, pp.
49–50; typewritten]

1
.
Macdonald did not print an excerpt from ‘Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool’.

2
.
Because of massive electricity power cuts.

To Fredric Warburg*

28 February 1947

27B Canonbury Square

Islington N 1

Dear Fred,

I said I would write to you following on our telephone conversation. I wrote to Moore some days back, asking him to expedite the business of
Coming Up for Air
and if possible to get the whole contract settled. I told him that I wanted you to be my regular publisher and to have first refusal of all my books, but there were some conditions, none of which I imagine are of a kind you would object to. One was that you should publish a uniform edition. The second was that I should have the right to do odd jobs for other publishers such as, for instance, introductions or contributions to miscellaneous publications, and the other was that you would not object to certain classes of cheap editions being done elsewhere, for instance, Penguins. Some of my books have been done as Penguins, and I suppose this might arise again.