George Orwell: A Life in Letters (64 page)

Moore has just written again raising the point about my previous contract with Gollancz. Gollancz is still supposed to have an option on two works of fiction, though in my opinion it should be only one as he refused
Animal Farm
and then claimed that it was not a work of fiction of standard length. Moore is anxious to get this settled. I must say I was inclined to leave it hanging, because actually I can think of ways to evade the contract with Gollancz. However, if it must be settled it would probably be better if I saw Gollancz personally.
¹
But meanwhile, need we let this hold up the republication of
Coming Up for Air
,
the copyright of which is, I suppose, my own?
²

Yours sincerely,

Geo. Orwell

[XIX, 3179, p. 53; typewritten]

1
.
This sentence had been annotated in the left-hand margin in Warburg’s office: ‘Go & see VG.’

2
.
The rights had reverted to Orwell on 22 November 1946 because the book had been allowed to go out of print for an agreed period of time.

On 7 March 1947, Ihor Szewczenko wrote to Orwell seeking a preface to
Animal Farm
. The Ukrainian translation had been given to the publisher in the early autumn of 1946. On 19 February 1947, the publisher requested a preface, regarding it as essential to the satisfactory reception of the book in Ukrainian. Szewczenko explained that delays had arisen because he had moved from Munich to Belgium (where the book was being printed), although he still worked in Germany, and because of difficulties in sending letters to Germany. Although the printer and publisher of
Animal Farm
had been licensed by the occupying powers, Szewczenko did not know whether a licence to publish
Animal Farm
had been applied for by them. If Orwell could not send a preface, he was asked to provide biographical notes.

Szewczenko then set out the political background of the publishers. They were, in the main, Soviet Ukrainians, many of them former members of the Bolshevik Party, but afterwards inmates of Siberian camps and who were ‘genuinely interested’ in the story. He reassured Orwell that ‘
AF
is not being published by Ukrainian Joneses’ – a reference to the farmer in
Animal Farm
.

To Ihor Szewczenko*

13 March 1947

27B Canonbury Square

Islington N 1

Dear Mr Szewczenko,

Many thanks for your letter of the 7th, which I received today.

I am frightfully busy, but I will try to send you a short introduction to
A. F.
and to despatch it not more than a week from hence. I gather that you want it to contain some biographical material, and also, I suppose, an account of how the book came to be written. I assume that the book will be produced in a very simple style with no illustrations on the cover, but just in case it should be wanted I will send a photograph as well.

I was very interested to hear about the people responsible for translating
A.F.,
¹
and encouraged to learn that that type of opposition exists in the
USSR
. I do hope it will not all end by the Displaced persons° being shipped back to the
USSR
or else mostly absorbed by Argentina. I think our desperate labour shortage may compel us to encourage a good many D.Ps to settle in this country, but at present the government is only talking of letting them in as servants etc., because there is still working-class resistance against letting in foreign workers, owing to fear of unemployment, and the Communists and ‘sympathisers’ are able to play on this.

I have noted your new address and presume you will be there till further notice. I shall be at the above address until April 10th, and after that at the Scottish address. I think you have this, but in case you have not I will give it you:

Barnhill Isle of Jura Argyllshire
scotland
.

Yours sincerely

Geo. Orwell

[XIX, 3187, 3188, pp. 72–4; typewritten]

1
.
This seems to be a slight misunderstanding. Szewczenko was undertaking the translation (it appeared under the pen-name Ivan Cherniatync’kyi).

To Victor Gollancz

14 March 1947

27B Canonbury Square,

Islington N 1

Dear Gollancz,

I believe Leonard Moore has already spoken to you about the contract which I still have with you and about my wish to be released from it. I believe that the contract that still subsists between us is the one made for
Keep the Aspidistra Flying
in 1937, which provided that I would give you the first refusal of my next three novels.
Coming Up for Air
worked off one of these, but you did not accept
Animal Farm
,
which you saw and refused in 1944, as working off another. So that by the terms of the contract I still owe you the refusal of two other novels.

I know that I am asking you a very great favour in asking that you should cancel the contract, but various circumstances have changed in the ten years since it was made, and I believe that it might be to your advantage, as it certainly would be to mine, to bring it to an end. The position is that since then you have published three books of mine
¹
but you have also refused two others on political grounds,
²
and there was also another which you did not refuse but which it seemed natural to take to another publisher.
³
The crucial case was
Animal Farm
.
At the time when this book was finished, it was very hard indeed to get it published, and I determined then that if possible I would take all my future output to the publishers who would produce it, because I knew that anyone who would risk this book would risk anything. Secker & Warburg were not only ready to publish
Animal Farm
but are willing, when paper becomes available, to do a uniform edition of such of my books as I think worth reprinting, including some which are at present very completely out of print. They are also anxious to reprint my novel
Coming Up for Air
in an ordinary edition this year, but, not unnaturally, they are only willing to do all this if they can have a comprehensive contract giving them control of anything I write.

From my own point of view it is clearly very unsatisfactory to have to take my novels to one publisher and at the same time to be obliged, at any rate in some cases, to take non-fiction books elsewhere. I recognise, of course, that your political position is not now exactly what it was when you refused
Animal Farm
,
and in any case I respect your unwillingness to publish books which go directly counter to your political principles. But it seems to me that this difficulty is likely to arise again in some form or other, and that it would be better if you are willing to bring the whole thing to an end.

If you wish to see me personally about this, I am at your disposal. I shall be at this address until about April 10th.

Yours sincerely,

Geo. Orwell

[XIX, 3191, pp. 77–9; typewritten]

1
.
The contract was not actually made ‘for’
Keep the Aspidistra Flying
(which had been published on 20 April 1936), but it referred to it. The first clause of the draft contract (all that survives) states ‘EB grants to G exclusive right to publish in English next 3 “new and original full-length novels” after Keep the A.’ This was signed on Orwell’s behalf – he was in Spain – by Eileen, who was empowered so to do. The three books published since then were
The Road to Wigan Pier
,
Coming Up for Air
, and
Inside the Whale
.
Only the second is a novel, of course. Orwell could, perhaps, have mentioned that he had also collaborated with Gollancz on
The Betrayal of the Left
.

2
.
The two refused on political grounds were
Homage to Catalonia
and
Animal Farm
.
Although there was no doubt that
Animal Farm
was refused on political grounds, Gollancz had a point that – whatever Orwell may have felt, it was hardly ‘a work of fiction of standard length’. The contract – if it repeated the wording of the draft – did specifically refer to ‘full-length novels’.

3
.
Presumably either
The Lion and the Unicorn
or
Critical Essays
, both published by Secker & Warburg.

It has long been accepted that, from his childhood, Orwell had shown an interest in science and had indicated he wanted one day to write a book like Wells’s
A Modern Utopia
(X, 29, p. 45). Sir Roger Mynors (see
[?].8.20
, n. 2) recalled how, when at Eton, he and Orwell had ‘developed a great passion for biology and got permission to do extra dissection in the biology lab’. One day Orwell, who had remarkable skill with a catapult, shot and killed a jackdaw high on the roof of the College chapel. They then took it to the biology laboratory and dissected it. ‘We made the great mistake of slitting the gall bladder and therefore flooding the place with, er . . . Well, it was an awful mess’ (
Remembering Orwell
, pp. 18–19).

Scholars have given much thought to when Orwell was prompted to set about writing
Nineteen Eighty-Four
. When
The Lost Orwell
was at proof stage, Ralph Desmarais, then undertaking doctoral research at Imperial College London, drew my attention to Orwell’s correspondence with Dr C. D. Darlington. This showed how important was Orwell’s attendance at a lecture given by John Baker at the PEN Conference, 22–26 August 1944 (see
19.3.47
, n. 3 below for the lecture). It was already known that Orwell was interested in Lysenko* and his notes for
The Last Man in Europe
make an obscure reference to ‘The Swindle of Bakerism and Ingsoc’ (XV, 2377, p. 368). We know that Orwell told Warburg that he first thought of the novel in 1943 and Orwell himself wrote that it was the Teheran Conference (28 November 1943) which led him ‘to discuss the implications of dividing the world up into “Zones of influence”’ (XIX, 3513, p. 487). So, whereas Orwell first thought of the novel in late 1
943, this exchange of correspondence suggests it was hearing Baker and his citation of Lysenko that prompted Orwell to begin serious work on
Nineteen Eighty-Four
later in 1944. Lysenko rejected traditional hybridisation theories. Stalin backed his approach to such a degree that opposition to him was outlawed in 1948. He claimed he could vastly improve Soviet crop yield, but after the total failure of his methods they were finally discredited in 1964.

To Dr C. D. Darlington*

19 March 1947

27B Canonbury Square

Islington N 1

Dear Dr Darlington,

Very many thanks for the cutting of your article from
Discovery
,
¹
which I read with great interest. I dare say someone had told you that I was interested in this story of Lysenko*, though I rather think we did meet once when I was at the B.B.C.
²

I first heard about it in the speech given by John Baker at the
PEN
Conference in 1944, and afterwards read it at greater length in Baker’s book
Science and the Planned State
.
³
I formed the opinion then that the story as told by Baker was true, and am very glad to get this confirmation. I would like to make use of the information supplied by you in my column some time, but I am no scientist and I hardly care to write about what is first and foremost a scientific matter. However, this persecution of scientists and falsification of results seems to me to follow naturally from the persecution of writers and historians, and I have written a number of times that British scientists ought not to remain so undisturbed when they see mere literary men sent to concentration camps.

I shall try to get hold of your obituary article on Vavilov in
Nature
.
⁴
I saw it stated in an American paper recently that he was definitely known to be dead.

Yours sincerely,

Geo. Orwell

[
LO
, pp. 128–31
;
XIX,
3192A, p. 79; typewritten]

1
.
C.D.
Darlington, ‘A Revolution in Russian Science’,
Discovery,
vol 8, February 1947, pp. 33–43.

2
.
Orwell had asked Darlington to broadcast to India for university students on ‘The Future of Science’, 7 July 1942 (XIII, 1170, p. 321); on ‘India and the Steel Age’, 10 July 1942 (XIII, 1
220, p. 361); and on ‘Plant or Animal Breeding’, 22 July 1943 (XV, 2088, p. 101).

3
.
In the lecture at the
PEN
Conference that Orwell heard Baker give, Baker reiterated his objection to scientific planning, specifying Trofim Denisovich Lysenko* as a case in point: ‘A good example is provided by the appointment of one Lysenko to be an Academician in the U.S.S.R. and Director of the Soviet Academy of Agricultural Science’. After describing Lysenko’s rejection of Western genetics and his insistence that Soviet researchers adopt his own beliefs, Baker concluded: ‘The case of Lysenko provides a vivid illustration of the degradation of science under a totalitarian regime’ (John R. Baker, ‘Science, Culture and Freedom’, in Herman Ould, ed.,
Freedom of Expression: A Symposium
(1945), pp. 118–19 which Orwell reviewed, 12 October 1
945, XVII, 2764, pp. 308–10). See also third paragraph from the end of ‘The Prevention of Literature’ (XVII, 2792, p. 379) for Orwell on the uncritical attitude of some scientists to the Soviet persecution of creative writers.