George Orwell: A Life in Letters (67 page)

2
.
Fredric Warburg’s second wife, formerly Pamela de Bayou (they married in 1933); and Roger Senhouse.

To Leonard Moore*

14 July 1947

Barnhill

Isle of Jura

Dear Moore,

I wonder if you could get in touch with the ‘Britain in Pictures’ people and find out what they are doing about a booklet,
The British People
, which I wrote for them 3 or 4 years ago. The history of it was this.
¹

In 1943 W. J. Turner,
²
who was editing the series, told me that they had had books on British scenery, British railways, etc., but none on the British people, and that they would like me to do one. I was not very keen on the idea, but as it was to be a short book (15,000) and Turner promised me I should have a free hand, I agreed. Before going to work I submitted a detailed synopsis, which was approved. I then wrote the book, and it was no sooner sent in than the reader for Collins’s, who were publishing the series, raised a long series of objections which amounted, in effect, to a demand that I should turn the book into a much cruder kind of propaganda. I pointed out that I had closely followed the agreed synopsis, and said I was not going to change anything. Turner backed me up, and the matter seemed to be settled. About a year later, nothing having happened, I met Turner in the street and told him I thought I ought to have some money for the book, on which I had been promised an advance of £50. He said he could get me £25, and did so. About this time he told me it had been decided to get someone else to do a companion volume to mine, on the same subject, so as to give as it were two sides to the picture. They first got Edmund Blunden,
³
who made such a mess of it that his copy was unprintable, so there was another delay. They afterwards got someone else, I forget whom, to do the companion volume. Turner and his assistant, Miss Shannon, several times told me that the objections to my book had been over-ruled and that it would appear in due course. About a year ago I was sent the proofs and corrected them. I was told then, or shortly afterwards, that they were choosing the illustrations, and if I remember rightly Miss Shannon told me what the illustrations would be. During last winter Turner died suddenly, and Miss Shannon wrote to say that this would impose another short delay, but that the book would appear shortly. Since then nothing has happened. I think it must be more than 4 years since I submitted the manuscript.

I haven’t the faintest interest in the book nor any desire that it should appear in print. It was simply a wartime book, part of a series designed to ‘sell’ Britain in the USA. At the same time I obviously ought to have some more money out of them, at least the other half of the £50 advance. £50 was incidentally rather a small advance, since these books, when once on the market, usually sold largely. Unfortunately I have not my copy of the contract, as this was one of the documents that were destroyed when my flat was bombed in 1944.
⁴
However, I suppose that wouldn’t matter, and I am sure Miss Shannon, if she is still helping to run the series, would be cooperative.

Yours sincerely

Eric Blair

[XIX, 3248, pp. 172–3; typewritten]

1
.
Though he did not realise it when he wrote to Moore,
The English People
was about to be published, in August 1947 (XIX, 3253, p. 179). Collins had not bothered to inform the author.

2
.
W. J. Turner (1889–1946), poet, novelist, and music critic who did a variety of publishing and journalistic work, including acting as general editor of the Britain in Pictures series for Collins.

2
.
Edmund Charles Blunden (1896–1974), poet, critic, and teacher.

4
.
Orwell and his wife were bombed out on 14 July 1944.

To Lydia Jackson*

28 July 1947

Barnhill

Isle of Jura

Dear Lydia,

I have just received notice to quit the Wallington Cottage.
¹
It was bound to happen sooner or later, and of course as it is only a weekly tenancy they can do it on very short notice. However the date given on the notice is August 4th, so that in theory your furniture ought to be removed by that date. I wrote off at once to the Solicitors explaining that you could hardly be expected to get out at such short notice, as you must find somewhere to put your furniture. If you want to write to them direct they are Balderston Warren & Co, Solicitors, Baldock, Herts. I have no doubt you could get more time, but of course if ordered to get out we have to do so, especially as I, the theoretical tenant, am not using the cottage at all, and you are only using it for week ends. I believe actually on a weekly tenancy they are supposed to give six week° notice. I am very sorry this should have happened.

If you’d like to come and stay any time, please do,
²
I shall be here till October, and there are always beds here. Just give me good notice, so that I can arrange about meeting you. The weather has been filthy but has lately turned nice again. Love to Pat.

Yours,

George

[XIX, 3250, p. 177; typewritten copy]

1
.
The Stores, Wallington; Orwell moved there on 2 April 1936, and it was his home until May 1940. He seems to have used it rarely thereafter (most often for a few days in 1940 and
1941, and perhaps a Bank Holiday weekend in 1942).

2
.
Lydia Jackson visited Barnhill 26 March to 2 April 1948. She might have retyped the final version of ‘Such, Such Were the Joys’ while she was there.

To Leonard Moore*

28 July 1947

Barnhill

Isle of Jura

Dear Moore,

Herewith the proofs.
¹
It seems quite a good translation, so far as I am able to judge. I have made a few corrections, but mostly of punctuation etc.

Many thanks for your offices in connection with the ‘Britain in Pictures’ book.

I am getting on fairly well with the novel, and expect to finish the rough draft by October. I dare say it will need another six months° work on it after that, but I can’t say yet when it is likely to be finished because I am not sure of my movements. I have to come back to London in October and shall probably stay at any rate a month, but we are thinking of spending most of the winter up here because I think it is not quite so cold here and fuel is a bit easier to get. If I do stay here I shall no doubt get on with the rewriting of the novel faster than if I am in London and involved in journalism. At any rate I have some hopes of finishing it fairly early next year.

Yours sincerely

Eric Blair

[XIX, 3251, pp. 177–8; typewritten]

1
.
Presumably proofs of the French translation of
Animal Farm
, published in October 1947.

To George Woodcock*

9 August 1947

Barnhill

Isle of Jura

Dear George,

I at last get round to answering your letter of 25th July. I am, as you say in principle prepared to do an article in the series you mention, but ‘in principle’ is about right, because I am busy and don’t want to undertake any more work in the near future. I am struggling with this novel which I hope to finish early in 1
948. I don’t even expect to finish the rough draft before about October, then I must come to London for about a month to see to various things and do one or two articles I have promised, then I shall get down to the rewriting of the book which will probably take me 4 or 5 months. It always takes me a hell of a time to write a book even if I am doing nothing else, and I can’t help doing an occasional article, usually for some American magazine, because one must earn some money occasionally.

I think probably I shall come back in November and we shall spend the winter here. I can work here with fewer interruptions, and I think we shall be less cold here. The climate, although wet, is not quite so cold as England, and it is much easier to get fuel. We are saving our coal as much as possible and hope to start the winter with a reserve of 3 tons, and you can get oil by the 40 gallon drum here, whereas last winter in London you had to go down on your knees to get a gallon once a fortnight. There are also wood and peat, which are a fag to collect but help out the coal. Part of the winter may be pretty bleak and one is sometimes cut off from the mainland for a week or two, but it doesn’t matter so long as you have flour in hand to make scones. Latterly the weather has been quite incredible, and I am afraid we shall be paying for it soon. Last week we went round in the boat and spent a couple of days on the completely uninhabited Atlantic side of the island in an empty shepherd’s hut—no beds, but otherwise quite comfortable. There are beautiful white beaches round that side, and if you do about an hour’s climb into the hills you come to lochs which are full of trout but never fished because too ungetatable. This last week of course we’ve all been breaking our backs helping to get the hay in, including Richard, who likes to roll about in the hay stark naked. If you want to come here any time, of course do, only just give me a week’s notice because of meeting. After September the weather gets pretty wild, though I know there are very warm days even in mid winter.

I got two copies of the
FDC
¹
bulletin. I am not too happy about following up the Nunn May case, ie, building him up as a well-meaning man who has been victimised. I think the Home Secretary can make hay of this claim if he wants to. I signed the first petition, not without misgivings, simply because I thought 10 years too stiff a sentence (assuming that
any
prison sentence is ever justified.) If I had had to argue the case, I should have pointed out that if he had communicated the information to the
USA
he would probably have got off with 2 years at most. But the fact is that he was an ordinary spy—I don’t mean that he was doing it for money—and went out to Canada as part of a spy ring. I suppose you read the Blue Book
²
on the subject. It also seems to me a weak argument to say that he felt information was being withheld from an ally, because in his position he must have known that the Russians never communicated military information to anybody. However, in so far as the object is simply to get him out of jail somewhat earlier, I am not against it.

Yours

George

[XIX, 3256, pp. 188–9; typewritten]

1
.
This was
Freedom Defence Committee Bulletin
, 5, July–August 1947. This issue outlines action taken to have Nunn May’s sentence reduced, achieving, if possible, ‘early release’. Dr Allan Nunn May (1911–2003) was found guilty of spying on behalf of the Soviets. Conor Cruise O’Brien defended him in the
Daily Telegraph
, 10 February 2003, as someone who thought it was his ‘moral duty’ to help the Soviet Union. He told O’Brien that on his release his communist colleagues cut him dead because he had pleaded guilty. He should, he said, ‘have pleaded
not
guilty, thereby enabling the Soviet Union to accuse the British Government of having framed’ him – it was, said Nunn May, ‘an instructive experience’.

2
.
Issued by the Canadian government (see Orwell’s letter to Dwight Macdonald,
15.4.47
, n. 12).

To Brenda Salkeld*

1 September 1
947

Barnhill

Isle of Jura

Dearest Brenda,

At last I get round to answering your letter. We have had unheard-of weather here for the last six weeks, one blazing day after another, and in fact at present we’re suffering from a severe drought, which is not a usual complaint in these parts. There has been no water in the taps for nearly a fortnight, and everyone has had to stagger to and fro with buckets from a well about 200 yards away. However there have been plenty of people to do it as the house was very full with people staying. We made several expeditions round to Glengarrisdale and slept a couple of nights in the shepherd’s cottage—no beds, only blankets and piles of bracken, but otherwise quite comfortable. Unfortunately on the last expedition we had a bad boat accident on the way back and 4 of us including Richard were nearly drowned. We got into the [Corryvreckan] whirlpool, owing to trying to go through the gulf at the wrong state of the tide, and the outboard motor was sucked off the boat. We managed to get out of it with the oars and then got to one of the little islands, just rocks covered with sea birds, which are dotted about there. The sea was pretty bad and the boat turned over as we were getting ashore, so that we lost everything we had including the oars and including 12 blankets. We might normally have expected to be there till next day, but luckily a boat came past some hours later and took us off. Luckily, also, it was a hot day and we managed to get a fire going and dry our clothes. Richard loved every moment of it except when he went into the water. The boat which picked us up put us off at the bay we used to call the W bay,
¹
and then we had to walk home over the hill, barefooted because most of our boots had gone with the other wreckage.
²
Our boat luckily wasn’t damaged apart from the loss of the engine, but I’m trying to get hold of a bigger one as these trips are really a bit too unsafe in a little rowing boat. I went fishing in the lochs near Glengarrisdale both times (I’ve got to continue in pen because the wire of the typewriter has slipped) & caught quite a lot of trout. Several of these lochs are full of trout but never fished because however you approach them it’s a day’s expedition to get there.