George Orwell: A Life in Letters (88 page)

I am instructing my agent to send you copies of the Italian translation of
Homage to Catalonia
& of the
Observer
of the 27
^th
February. Please let me know if they do not arrive, & forgive me for not being more helpful. Please forgive also the bad handwriting, but I am writing this in bed.

Yours fraternally

Geo. Orwell.

[
LO,
p. 121; XX, 3650A, p. 140; handwritten]

1
.
£
10 may not sound very much but its present-day value is roughly twenty-five times greater than in 1949. In that year I was paid just under £5 a week for editing a magazine about railways.

To David Astor*

18 July
1949

Cranham Lodge

Cranham

Dear David,

I wonder how you are getting on. I was slightly dismayed to hear from Charoux
¹
that you were getting along ‘as well as can be expected.’ I had thought the operation you were having was something very minor.
²
Let me know how you are when you get a chance to write.

Richard went back to Jura yesterday, as he is going to the village school at Ardlussa for the Xmas term & it starts at the end of this month. He enjoyed himself at the kindergarten & had a good report, I am glad to say, though I didn’t notice that he learned very much.

I have been so-so, up & down. I get what they call flare-ups, ie. periods with high temperatures & so on, but on the whole I am better I think. I have got Morland, the specialist, coming to see me again next week. When I am well & about again, some time next year perhaps, I intend getting married again. I suppose everyone will be horrified, but it seems to me a good idea. Apart from other considerations, I think I should stay alive longer if I were married & had someone to look after me. It is to Sonia Brownell, the sub-editor of
Horizon
, I can’t remember whether you know her, but you probably do.

It is evident that I shall be under medical care for a long time yet, & I shan’t even be able to get out of bed until I stop being feverish. Later on I might move to a sanatorium nearer London, & Morland may have some ideas about that, but at present I don’t think I could face a journey.

Have you read
The Naked & the Dead
?
³
It’s awfully good, the best war book of the last war yet.

Write when you can.

Yours

George

[XX, 3661, pp. 147–8; handwritten]

1
.
Charoux was a picture-framer and restorer (see
19.11.48
).

2
.
Astor’s operation was relatively minor but very painful.

3
.
By Norman Mailer (1948).

To Leonard Moore*

20 July
1949

Cranham Lodge

Cranham

Dear Moore,

Recently some Russian DPs who run a Russian-language paper called
possev
in Frankfurt sent me a file of the papers containing a Russian translation of
Animal Farm
.
¹
They want to issue it as a booklet and say, what is no doubt true, that it would be quite easy for them to get a few thousand copies of it through the Iron Curtain, I suppose via Berlin and Vienna. Of course I am willing enough for them to do this, but it will cost money, ie. for the printing and binding. They want 2000 deutsch° marks, which represents about £155. This is more than I can pay out of my own pocket, but I wouldn’t mind contributing something. As a start it occurs to me that the American army magazine
Der Monat
must owe me something.
²
There was their serialisation of
A.F
., but in addition there was a mix-up about a previous article (reprinted from
Commentary
) which I believe has never been paid for. They sent some kind of official form which I thought was the cheque, and I believe I incorrectly told Melvyn Lasky, the editor, that I had received the cheque. Their bank account would show whether the money has actually been paid over. But any way, if
Der Monat
do owe me something which they have not yet paid to you, it would be a convenient way of financing the Russian translation of
A.F
. if they paid the money over in marks which wouldn’t have to leave Germany. I can’t remember whether there is anything else of mine appearing in Germany, but at any rate, could you let me know how many marks you think I could realise there? In the case of our carrying through any transaction of this kind, naturally you will draw your commission as usual.
³

I am also trying to pull a wire at the Foreign Office to see if they will subscribe a bit. I’m afraid it’s not likely. They will throw millions down the drain on useless radio propaganda,
⁴
but not finance books.

If all this comes to anything we shall have to make sure that these
Possev
people are O.K. and not just working a swindle. Their notepaper etc. looks all right, and I know the translation must be a good one as it was made by Gleb Struve whom I know well. They gave me as the address of their English agent Mr Lew Rahr, 18 Downs Road, Beckenham, Kent, and suggested he should come and see me. I don’t think I want to see him at this stage, but do you think you could write to him, say tentatively that we are trying to get this scheme financed and see from his answer whether he seems O.K. I have also asked a friend who is I think in Frankfurt
⁵
to contact the
Possev
people.

Yours sincerely

Eric Blair

[XX, 3662, pp. 148–9; typewritten]

1
.
Vladimir Gorachek, who described himself as the ‘Authorized DP-Publisher’ of
Possev
(the subtitle of which was ‘Social and Political Review in Russian Language. Germany’), wrote to Orwell on 16 July 1949 with proposals for publishing
Animal Farm
in Russian for distribution gratis among Russian readers behind the Iron Curtain. It was planned to distribute the books through Berlin and Vienna ‘and other channels further E[a]st’. The cost of distribution was to be met from selling 1,000 to 1,200 copies in West Germany. Gorachek apologised for the fact that an earlier letter had been written in Russian: ‘We thought that such a perfect understanding of all events occurred° in our country after the revolution and of the very substance of the regime now established there could not be acquired without the knowledge of Russian language.’

2
.
Annotated in Moore’s office: ‘Paid £50 for
A.F.
’

3
.
Annotated in Moore’s office: ‘£250 owing from U.S. Army 1984.’ This was money due for the serialisation of
Nineteen Eighty-Four
in
Der Monat
, November 1949 to March 1950.

4
.
The Foreign Office made no contribution; ‘useless radio propaganda’ is doubtless based on Orwell’s experience during his ‘two wasted years’ at the
BBC
.

5
.
Ruth Fischer.

To Leonard Moore*

21 July
1949
¹

Cranham Lodge,

Cranham

Dear Moore,

Thank you for two letters date the 19th, with various enclosures.

I enclose the photostats of the McGill article. I don’t object to its being published in this form
provided it is stated that this is an abridgement
(they needn’t of course say why it has been abridged.)
²
Could you please make this clear to Harcourt Brace?

I am of course very pleased about the
NBC
broadcast of
1984
,
³
& the serialisation in
Der Monat
. This last would at need solve the difficulty I wrote to you about yesterday, of getting some marks to pay for the Russian translation of
Animal Farm
. Of course I’m not going to pay this myself if I can help it, but I haven’t very great hopes of the government coming to my aid. Meanwhile, could you ask the editor of
Der Monat
to hold over the necessary sum (2000 deutsch° marks) in case we want to disburse it in Germany. The editor, Melvyn Lasky, would be sympathetic to this idea & can no doubt make the necessary arrangements. As I said before, your commission will not be affected by this.

Yours sincerely

Eric Blair
⁴

[XX, 3663, pp. 149–
50; handwritten]

1
.
This letter was dated 20.9.49 but is date-stamped as having been received in Moore’s office on 22 July 1949. The month is clearly incorrect, and Orwell seems also to have misdated the day of the month, since he refers to ‘the difficulty I wrote to you about yesterday’.

2
.
‘The Art of Donald McGill’,
Horizon
, September 194
1 (XX, 850, pp. 23-31), was published in an abridged form in
A Writer’s Reader
, edited by P. W. Souers and others (New York, 1950).

3
.
Broadcast 27 August
1949 in NBC University Theatre with David Niven as Winston Smith. The excellent dramatisation was by Milton Wayne. The novelist, James Hilton (1900–54), provided an interval commentary. The presenter described it as the ‘current and widely discussed novel’. A CD of the broadcast was made available by the Old Time Radio Club, 2007.

4
.
A postscript refers to two slight proof corrections.

To Jack Common*

27 July
1949

Cranham Lodge

Cranham

Dear Jack,

Herewith cheque for £50—reply if when° you can, no hurry.

This place is a sanatorium. I’ve been under treatment for TB for the better part of 2 years, all of this year here, & half of last year in a hospital near Glasgow. Of course I’ve had it coming to me all my life. The only real treatment, it seems, is rest, so I’ve got to do damn-all, including not trying to work for a long time, possibly as long as a year or two, though I trust it won’t be quite as bad as that. It’s an awful bore, but I am obeying orders, as I do want to stay alive at least 10 years, I’ve got such a lot of work to do besides Richard to look after.

Richard is now 5 & very big & strong. He’s been spending the summer here, so that I can see him every week, & going to kindergarten school, but shortly he’s going back home so that he can start attending the village school in the winter term. We’ve lived since 1946 in Jura,
¹
but I’m afraid I personally shall only be able to spend the summers there from now on, because it’s too remote & inconvenient in the winter for a semi-invalid. I suppose Richard, too, will have to start going to school on the mainland before long, as you can imagine what a village school in the Hebrides is like. So I shall probably have to have some sort of establishment in London or Edinburgh or somewhere— however, I can’t make plans till I know when I shall be on my feet again. I’m glad to hear you’ve been so philoprogenitive, or at any rate, progenitive.

I haven’t ever remarried, though I sometimes think I would if I could get some of my health back.
²
Richard Rees spends part of each year with us in Jura as he is sort of partner with the chap who farms the croft our house is on. Otherwise he is more & more wrapped up in painting.
³

All the best

Eric

[XX, 3666, pp. 1
51–2; handwritten]

1
.
Common had evidently not been in contact with Orwell for some time. The amount lent to Common remained unpaid at Orwell’s death.

2
.
Orwell suggests, contrary to what happened, that he might remarry if his health improved.

3
.
One of Rees’s paintings of Barnhill is held in the Orwell Archive.

To Sir Richard Rees*

27 July
1949

Cranham Lodge

Cranham

Dear Richard,

Thanks so much for your letter, with cutting. Do you think you could get your Mr Roberts to make me a bookcase, same dimensions as yours but 5
'
feet° wide, if he can manage it. If, as I assume, it will be of white wood, I suppose it should be stained or painted, I don’t much mind which, except that if painted I think off-white is the best colour. I’d be much obliged if you could get him to do this & send it up to Barnhill.

I think you’ll find at Barnhill one novel by Charles Williams, called
The Place of the Lion
¹
or something like that (published by Gollancz.) He’s quite unreadable, one of those writers who just go on & on & have no idea of selecting. I think Eliot’s approval of him must be purely sectarian (Anglo-Catholic). It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that Eliot approves of C.S. Lewis as well. The more I see the more I doubt whether people ever really make aesthetic judgements at all. Everything is judged on political grounds which are then given an aesthetic disguise. When, for instance, Eliot can’t see anything good in Shelley or anything bad in Kipling, the real underlying reason must be that the one is a radical & the other a conservative, of sorts. Yet evidently one does have aesthetic reactions, especially as a lot of art & even literature is politically neutral, & also certain unmistakeable° standards do exist, e.g. Homer is better than Edgar Wallace. Perhaps the way we should put it is: the more one is aware of political bias the more one can be independent of it, & the more one claims to be impartial the more one is biassed.