A Life in Letters Page 28
At this moment this may not seem a very satisfying reply, but I suggest that to anyone who looks back in three months' time, it will seem better than what we are doing at present and it is the duty of those who can keep their heads to protest before the inherently silly process of retaliation against the helpless is carried any further.
Yours truly,
George Orwell
[XIV, 1563, pp. 97-8; typewritten]
1.In his Wartime Diary for 11 October 1942, Orwell recorded that following the unsuccessful raid on Dieppe, the Canadians had 'chained up a number of German prisoners equal to the number of British prisoners chained up in Germany'. (See Diaries, p. 367.) The letter was not published.
To R. R. Desai*
3 March 1943
Dear Desai
The Indian Government have cabled asking us to do something in Gujerati about the Beveridge report so we shall have to use your Gujerati period on Monday next for this. They evidently want to have the whole story, i.e. what the scheme proposes and also the history of the Parliamentary Debate. I need not tell you that the censorship would not allow through any comment, i.e. any comment on our part which amounted to a criticism of the Government for watering the Beveridge scheme down. On the other hand, the debate on the subject with the arguments brought forward for and against the report could be given, objectively. I should suggest simply setting out the provisions of the report, not going into too much detail, but emphasizing the more important clauses, especially family allowances, then mention the debate and then explain how much of the report the Government actually proposes to adopt. You can say, with safety, that whatever else goes out, family allowances on some scale or another are certain to be adopted. And it would be worth adding that this itself is an important advance and likely to raise the British birth-rate.1 However, they evidently want an objective report on the Beveridge scheme rather than a propaganda statement. You can use the whole of your period on Beveridge or use about ten minutes and reserve about three minutes for the headline news of the week, just as you wish. I hope you will let us have your script in good time. We have already cabled our people in India that we're going to deal with Beveridge this week.
Yours
Eric Blair
Talks Producer
Indian Section.
P.S. If I could have this particular script on Saturday [6th] I shall be much obliged.
[XV, 1923, p. 10; typewritten]
1.Orwell was proved right. Later, when the Labour Government of 1999 increased child benefits, the Institute of Fiscal Studies report, Does Welfare Reform Affect Fertility?, estimated that badly educated mothers had an additional 45,000 children in the year after the reforms were introduced (Daily Telegraph, 22 December 2008).
To Penguin Books
8 March 1943
10a Mortimer Crescent
NW 6
Dear Sir,
With reference to your letter dated 5.3.43. I am not absolutely certain without looking up my contracts how I stand about the rights in my books, but I am almost certain that if the publisher has issued no cheap edition two years after publication, the rights revert to me. I can verify this, but in any case neither of my publishers is likely to make trouble about the republication of books which appeared some time ago. The books of mine which might be worth reprinting are (I give date of publication with each):--
Burmese Days (1934-1935).
Homage to Catalonia (1938) Coming Up for Air (1939) Inside the Whale (1940).
I should say Burmese Days was much the most hopeful. It was first published by Harper's in the USA, then a year later in a slightly bowdlerised edition by Gollancz. The English edition sold 3000 to 4000, the American about 1000.1 I think it deserves reprinting, and it has a certain topicality owing to the campaign in Burma. Gollancz's stock of it has come to an end and it is totally out of print, but I possess a copy of the American edition. Inside the Whale is also totally out of print, the stocks of it having been blitzed, but I have a proof copy. It didn't sell much but got a certain notoriety owing to parts of it being reprinted in magazines. Homage to Catalonia I think ought [to] be reprinted some time, but I don't know whether the present is quite the moment. It is about the Spanish civil war, and people probably don't want that dragged up now. On the other hand if Spain comes into the war I suppose it would be for a while possible to sell anything which seemed informative about Spanish internal affairs, if one could get it through the press in time.
I shall be happy to give you any further information you want.
Yours faithfully
George Orwell
[XV, 1942, pp. 18-19; typewritten]
1.In the light of Orwell's later bitterness over the way Gollancz had 'garbled' Burmese Days (see II, p. 310), his comment that it was 'slightly bowdlerised' is surprising. The US edition sold better than Orwell remembered. It was, in fact, reprinted. The first printing was of 2,000 copies. A Penguin edition was published in May 1944.
To Dwight Macdonald*
26 May 1943
10a Mortimer Crescent
NW 6
Dear Macdonald,
Many thanks for your letter (dated April 13 and arrived yesterday!) and cheque. I enclose a list of 15 people whodeg I should think would be possible subscribers to P[artisan] R[review].1 Some of them I know are acquainted with the paper, and some may possibly be subscribers, but not to my knowledge. I am circularising all of them, telling them you can accept foreign subscriptions, and offering to lend copies so that they can have a look at it. Forster was interested when I showed him a copy some time back, so I am pretty certain he would subscribe if you prodded him, also Myers and Rees.
I am glad the last letter was a success and I will send another as soon as possible. As you see by the above address I didn't get the job I was trying for (in North Africa) and am still at the BBC. I enjoy very much doing these letters for PR, it is a tremendous relief every now and then to write what one really thinks about the current situation, and if I have occasionally shown signs of wanting to stop it is because I keep fearing that your readers will get tired of always hearing about affairs in England from the same person. My point of view isn't the only one and as you will have seen from the various letters from Alex Comfort* etc. there are some pretty vigorous opponents of it.2 But within my own framework I have tried to be truthful and I am very happy to go on with the arrangement so long as you are.
We have shortly coming out a book made up from the broadcasts sent out to India by my department.3 I think some copies will be sent to the USA, and I will try to get a copy to PR. Of course all books of broadcasts are crashingly dull, but it might interest you to see some specimens of British propaganda to India.
I will send off my next letter probably in about a fortnight. In that case it should reach you before the end of July unless the mail service comes unstuck again.
All the best.
Geo. Orwell
[XV, 2098A, p. xxiv; typewritten]
1.For the list of names, see XV, pp. xxiv-xxv.
2.In his 'London Letter', 1 January 1942 (XIII, 913, pp. 107-14), Orwell attacked Comfort* and others. (See its n. 4 and 'Pacifism and War: A Controversy', XIII, 1270, pp. 392-400.) 3.Talking to India, edited by Orwell, published 18 November 1943 (XV, 2359, pp. 320-1).
To Alex Comfort*
Sunday [11?] July 1943
10a Mortimer Crescent NW 6
Dear Comfort,
Very many thanks for sending me the copy of New Road. I am afraid I was rather rude to you in our Tribune set-to,1 but you yourself weren't altogether polite to certain people. I was only making a political and perhaps moral reply, and as a piece of verse your contribution was immensely better, a thing most of the people who spoke to me about it hadn't noticed. I think no one noticed that your stanzas had the same rhyme going right the way through. There is no respect for virtuosity nowadays. You ought to write something longer in that genre, something like the 'Vision of Judgement'.2 I believe there could be a public for
that kind of thing again nowadays.
As to New Road. I am much impressed by the quantity and the general level of the verse you have got together. I should think half the writers were not known to me before. Apropos of Aragon3 and others, I have thought over what you said about the reviving effect of defeat upon literature and also upon national life. I think you may well be right, but it seems to me that such a revival is only against something, ie. against foreign oppression, and can't lead beyond a certain point unless that oppression is ultimately to be broken, which must be by military means. I suppose however one might accept defeat in a mystical belief that it will ultimately break down of its own accord. The really wicked thing seems to me to wish for a 'negotiated' peace, which means back to 1939 or even 1914. I have written a long article on this for Horizon apropos of Fielden's book on India, but I am not certain Connolly will print it.4
I am going to try to get Forster to talk about New Road, together with the latest number of New Writing, in one of his monthly book talks to India. If he doesn't do it this month he might next.5 There is no sales value there, but it extends your publicity a little and by talking about these things on the air in wartime one has the feeling that one is keeping a tiny lamp alight somewhere. You ought to try to get a few copies of the book to India. There is a small public for such things among people like Ahmed Ali 6 and they are starved for books at present. We have broadcast quite a lot of contemporary verse to India, and they are now doing it to China with a commentary in Chinese. We also have some of our broadcasts printed as pamphlets in India and sold for a few annas, a thing that could be useful but is terribly hard to organise in the face of official inertia and obstruction. I saw you had a poem by Tambimuttu. If you are bringing out other numbers, you ought to get some of the other Indians to write for you. There are several quite talented ones and they are very embittered because they think people snub them and won't print their stuff. It is tremendously important from several points of view to try to promote decent cultural relations between Europe and Asia. Nine tenths of what one does in this direction is simply wasted labour, but now and again a pamphlet or a broadcast or something gets to the person it is intended for, and this does more good than fifty speeches by politicians. William Empson7 has worn himself out for two years trying to get them to broadcast intelligent stuff to China, and I think has succeeded to some small extent. It was thinking of people like him that made me rather angry about what you said of the BBC, though God knows I have the best means of judging what a mixture of whoreshop and lunatic asylum it is for the most part.
Yours sincerely
Geo. Orwell
[XV, 2185, pp. 168-9; typewritten]
1.See Orwell's verse-letter, 'As One Non-Combatant to Another (A Letter to "Obadiah Hornbrooke")', XV, 2138, pp. 142-5 (and Comfort's initial verse-letter, pp. 138-141).
2.When George III died, Robert Southey, the poet laureate, wrote a conventional elegy, Vision of Judgement (1821). To this, Byron wrote a devastating rejoinder, The Vision of Judgement. Its satire was so biting that John Murray refused to take the risk of publishing it, and when Leigh Hunt, editor of The Liberal, printed it in 1822, he was fined PS100.
3.Louis Aragon came to the fore after the collapse of France, through his patriotic poems - Le Creve-coeur (1941) and Les Yeux d'Elsa (1942) among them. (See also 9.4.46 to Philip Rahv. n. 3.) 4.Lionel Fielden (1896-1974), after serving in World War I (including Gallipoli) and working for the League of Nations and the High Commission for Refugees in Greece and the Levant, joined the BBC in 1927. He served as a staff officer in Italy in 1943 and was Director of Public Relations for the Allied Control Commission in Italy, 1944-45. Orwell contributed a long review article to Horizon, September 1943 (XV, 2257, pp. 209-16), on Fielden's 'ironical attack on British imperialism in India', Beggar My Neighbour. Fielden responded with 'Toothpaste in Bloomsbury' (XV, 2258, pp. 216-21).
5.Orwell was as good as his word and Forster discussed New Road on 7 August 1943.
6.Ahmed Ali (1908- ), author and academic, was at this time the BBC's Listener and Research Director in India.
7.William Empson (1906-84; Kt., 1979), poet and critic. He had been Professor of English Literature in Tokyo and Peking before the war and after at Sheffield University (1953-71). He achieved scholarly recognition with Seven Types of Ambiguity (1930). His Times obituary described him as 'the most famously over-sophisticated man of his time' who 'revolutionized our ways of reading a poem'.
On 28 August, Ivor Brown, on behalf of the Observer, wrote to Orwell saying he had heard he was leaving the BBC and he wondered whether he would like to go to Algiers and Sicily, 'accredited' by the War Office, though not as 'a regular war correspondent'. It might mean writing for other newspapers as well as the Observer, in order to share costs, 'but primarily you would be The Observer man'.
To Ivor Brown*
31 August 1943
10a Mortimer Crescent NW 6
Dear Mr Brown,
Many thanks for your letter. I would, of course, like very greatly to go to North Africa for you if it can be arranged. If it can, however, I wonder if it would be possible to have some idea of the date. I have not put in my formal resignation to the BBC but have informed my immediate chiefs that I intend to leave them, and when resigning formally I am supposed to give 2 months' notice. This however would not be insisted on so long as I could give at any rate a few weeks' notice. Meanwhile I have arranged to go on my annual holiday (for a fortnight) at the end of this week. Of course I would throw this up if the opportunity of going to North Africa occurred immediately, but otherwise I am not anxious to miss my holiday as I have not had one for 14 months and am rather in need of one. So I should be greatly obliged if you could give me some idea of when this scheme is likely to materialise, supposing that it does so.
Yours sincerely
Geo. Orwell
[XV, 2255, p. 208; typewritten]
To L. F. Rushbrook Williams*
24 September 1943
B.B.C.
Dear Mr Rushbrooke-Williams,1
In confirmation of what I said to you earlier in private, I want to tender my resignation from the BBC, and should be much obliged if you would forward this to the proper quarter.
I believe that in speaking to you I made my reasons clear, but I should like to put them on paper lest there should be any mistake. I am not leaving because of any disagreement with BBC policy and still less on account of any kind of grievance. On the contrary I feel that throughout my association with the BBC I have been treated with the greatest generosity and allowed very great latitude. On no occasion have I been compelled to say on the air anything that I would not have said as a private individual. And I should like to take this opportunity of thanking you personally for the very understanding and generous attitude you have always shown towards my work.
I am tendering my resignation because for some time past I have been conscious that I was wasting my own time and the public money on doing work that produces no result. I believe that in the present political situation the broadcasting of British propaganda to India is an almost hopeless task. Whether these broadcasts should be continued at all is for others to judge, but I myself prefer not to spend my time on them when I could be occupying myself with journalism which does produce some measurable effect. I feel that by going back to my normal work of writing and journalism I could be more useful than I am at present.
I do not know how much notice of resignation I am supposed to give.2 The Observer have again raised the project of my going to North Africa. This has to be approved by the War Office and may well fall through again, but I mention it in case I should have to leave at shorter notice than would otherwise be the case. I will in any case see to it that the programmes are arranged for some time ahead.
Yours sincerely
Eric Blair
[XV, 2283, pp. 250-1; typewritten]
1.Rushbrook Williams signed his name over this misspelling of his name, without hyphen and 'e'; both err
ors were Orwell's.
2.On 29 September, Sir Guy Williams, Overseas Services Establishment Officer, wrote to Orwell, accepting his resignation 'with much regret'. Whilst recognising that he should normally work his two months' notice, Sir Guy wrote: 'if, as you say, you may have to leave at shorter notice, the Corporation would be prepared to allow you to do so'; Orwell's resignation would take effect from 24 November 1943 'unless you inform me that you wish to leave at an earlier date'. On 7 October 1943, Brown wrote to Orwell saying he had heard he would be free at the end of November and he would be glad if he could come over to see him at The Observer to discuss the amount of reviewing and other writing he could do for that paper. He mentioned also that he much appreciated Orwell's review 'of Laski' (of Reflections on the Revolution of Our Time), 10 October 1943 (XV, 2309, pp. 270-2).
To S. Moos
16 November 1943
10a Mortimer Crescent NW 6
Dear Mr. Moos,
I hope you will forgive my long delay in commenting on and returning the enclosed manuscript, but I have been in poor health in recent weeks, and I am also very busy, as you can perhaps imagine.
I find what you say very interesting, but I have two criticisms of a general nature to make. The first is that I think you are concerned with 'what' a little too much to the exclusion of 'how'. It is comparatively easy to see the evils of modern industrialised society, and it is only one more step beyond that to see the inadequacy of the solutions put forward by Socialists etc. The real trouble begins when one wants to communicate these ideas to a large enough number of people to make some actual change in the trend of society. We certainly have to decide what kind of world we want, but I suggest that the greatest problem before intellectuals now is the conquest of power. You speak of forming a 'new elite' (which I think there probably must be, though I am inclined to shrink from the idea). But how to start forming that elite, how one can do such things inside the powerful modern state which is controlled by people whose interest is to prevent any such thing--that is another question. If you have seen anything of the innumerable attempts during the past 20 years to start new political parties, you will know what I mean.