As to what publisher to approach, I think Nicholson and Watson might be the best.2 I told one of their men I had a book coming along and he seemed anxious to get hold of it. Or else Hutchinson, where I have a contact in Robert Neumann. Or anyone else who (a) has got some paper and (b) isn't in the arms of Stalin. The latter is important. This book is murder from the Communist point of view, though no names are mentioned. Provided we can get over these difficulties I fancy the book should find a publisher, judging by the stuff they do print nowadays.
I am going to send two copies. I think we might have a try at an American publication as well. About a year ago the Dial Press wrote asking me to send them the next book I did, and I think they might like this one.3
I am contracted now to do a 'Britain in Pictures' book, which I suppose will take me 6-8 weeks. After that I am arranging to do two longish literary essays, one on No Orchids for Miss Blandish, and one on Salvador Dali, for two magazines. When I have done those two we shall have enough stuff for the book of reprinted essays.
Yours sincerely
Eric Blair
[XVI, 2436, pp. 126-7; typewritten]
1.Animal Farm. Paper was in desperately short supply (except, of course, for government bureaucracy).
2.At the top of this letter to Moore someone has written the names of two more publishers: Eyre & Spottiswoode and Hollis & Carter.
3.In Partisan Review, 63 (1996), William Phillips claimed he was the first person in America to read Animal Farm; he then recommended it to the Dial Press.
To Leonard Moore*
23 March 1944
10a Mortimer Crescent NW 6
Dear Mr Moore,
Thanks for your letter. I sent off two copies of the Ms of the book yesterday and hope they reached you safely. I haven't heard from Gollancz and I dare say he will write direct to you.
We must on no account take this book to either Eyre & Spottiswoode or Hollis & Carter. They are both Catholic publishers and Hollis, in particular, has published some most poisonous stuff since he set up in business. It would do me permanent harm to be published by either of these. I don't know what the objections to Hutchinson's and N. & W. 1 are, but perhaps you could let me know. I should think Cape is another possibility. Or Fabersdeg. I have a contact in Faber's and a slight one at Cape's.2 But let me know whom you are going to take it to. I should like it settled as early as possible.
Yours sincerely
Eric Blair
[XVI, 2440, pp. 130-1; typewritten]
1.Nicholson & Watson.
2.T.S. Eliot at Faber & Faber and Miss C. V. Wedgwood at Cape. Daniel George (who reviewed novels for Tribune) was chief reader at Cape.
To Leonard Moore*
15 April 1944
10a Mortimer Crescent NW 6
Dear Mr Moore,
Nicholson & Watson refuse to print Animal Farm, giving much the same reason as Gollancz, ie. that it is bad taste to attack the head of an allied government in that manner etc.1 I knew we should have a lot of trouble with this book, at any rate in this country. Meanwhile I have taken the copy I had round to Cape's, as Miss Wedgwood 2 there had often asked me to let them see something, but I wouldn't be surprised if they made the same answer. I think Faber's is just possible, and Routledges rather more so if they have the paper. While Cape's have it I'll sound both Eliot and Herbert Read.3 I saw recently a book published by Eyre and Spottiswoode and I think they must be all right--perhaps, as you say, I was mixing them up with Burns, Oates and Washburne. Failing all else I will try to get one of the small highbrow presses to do it, in fact I shouldn't wonder if that is the likeliest bet. I know of one which has just started up and has a certain amount of money to dispose of. Naturally I want this book printed because I think what it says wants saying, unfashionable though it is nowadays.
I hope the copy went off to the USA? I suppose you still have one copy, so perhaps you might send it me to show to Read if I can contact him.
How do my copyrights with Gollancz stand? When I have done the necessary stuff I want to compile that book of essays and I am anxious to include the Dickens essay which was printed by Gollancz. I suppose if I fixed up with some other publisher, eg. Cape, to do Animal Farm they might ask for my next book, which would be the essays. Have I the right to reprint the Dickens essay, since the book is out of print?
Your sincerely
Eric Blair
[XVI, 2453, pp. 155-6; typewritten]
1.In a letter to The Observer, 23 November 1980, Andre Deutsch, who was working for Nicholson & Watson in 1944, told how, having been introduced to Orwell in 1943 by George Mikes, he had occasionally been commissioned to write reviews for Tribune for a fee of PS1. About Whitsun 1944, Orwell let him read the typescript of Animal Farm, and he was convinced that Nicholson & Watson would be keen to publish Orwell's book. Unfortunately, though they did not share Gollancz's political reservations, they lectured Orwell on what they perceived to be errors in Animal Farm. Orwell was calm but depressed; Deutsch, deeply embarrassed. Deutsch was even then hoping to start publishing in his own right, but though Orwell twice offered him Animal Farm, and he would dearly have loved to publish it, he felt himself still a novice and not yet able to start his own firm.
2.Veronica Wedgwood (1910-1997; DBE, 1968), the historian, was then working for Cape.
3.T.S. Eliot was working for Faber & Faber, and Herbert Read for Routledge.
To Noel Willmett
18 May 1944
10a Mortimer Crescent NW 6
Dear Mr Willmett,
Many thanks for your letter. You ask whether totalitarianism, leader-worship etc. are really on the up-grade and instance the fact that they are not apparently growing in this country and the USA.
I must say I believe, or fear, that taking the world as a whole these things are on the increase. Hitler, no doubt, will soon disappear, but only at the expense of strengthening (a) Stalin, (b) the Anglo-American millionaires and (c) all sorts of petty fuhrersdeg of the type of de Gaulle. All the national movements everywhere, even those that originate in resistance to German domination, seem to take non-democratic forms, to group themselves round some superhuman fuhrer (Hitler, Stalin, Salazar, Franco, Gandhi, De Valera are all varying examples) and to adopt the theory that the end justifies the means. Everywhere the world movement seems to be in the direction of centralised economies which can be made to 'work' in an economic sense but which are not democratically organised and which tend to establish a caste system. With this go the horrors of emotional nationalism and a tendency to disbelieve in the existence of objective truth because all the facts have to fit in with the words and prophecies of some infallible fuhrer. Already history has in a sense ceased to exist, ie. there is no such thing as a history of our own times which could be universally accepted, and the exact sciences are endangered as soon as military necessity ceases to keep people up to the mark. Hitler can say that the Jews started the war, and if he survives that will become official history. He can't say that two and two are five, because for the purposes of, say, ballistics they have to make four. But if the sort of world that I am afraid of arrives, a world of two or three great superstates which are unable to conquer one another, two and two could become five if the fuhrer wished it.1 That, so far as I can see, is the direction in which we are actually moving, though, of course, the process is reversible.
As to the comparative immunity of Britain and the USA. Whatever the pacifists etc. may say, we have not gone totalitarian yet and this is a very hopeful symptom. I believe very deeply, as I explained in my book The Lion and the Unicorn, in the English people and in their capacity to centralise their economy without destroying freedom in doing so. But one must remember that Britain and the USA haven't been really tried, they haven't known defeat or severe suffering, and there are some bad symptoms to balance the good ones. To begin with there is the general indifference to the decay of democracy. Do you realise, for instance, that no one in England under 26 now has a vote and that so far as one c
an see the great mass of people of that age don't give a damn for this? Secondly there is the fact that the intellectuals are more totalitarian in outlook than the common people. On the whole the English intelligentsia have opposed Hitler, but only at the price of accepting Stalin. Most of them are perfectly ready for dictatorial methods, secret police, systematic falsification of history2 etc. so long as they feel that it is on 'our' side. Indeed the statement that we haven't a Fascist movement in England largely means that the young, at this moment, look for their fuhrer elsewhere. One can't be sure that that won't change, nor can one be sure that the common people won't think ten years hence as the intellectuals do now. I hope 3 they won't, I even trust they won't, but if so it will be at the cost of a struggle. If one simply proclaims that all is for the best and doesn't point to the sinister symptoms, one is merely helping to bring totalitarianism nearer.
You also ask, if I think the world tendency is towards Fascism, why do I support the war. It is a choice of evils--I fancy nearly every war is that. I know enough of British imperialism not to like it, but I would support it against Nazism or Japanese imperialism, as the lesser evil. Similarly I would support the USSR against Germany because I think the USSR cannot altogether escape its past and retains enough of the original ideas of the Revolution to make it a more hopeful phenomenon than Nazi Germany. I think, and have thought ever since the war began, in 1936 or thereabouts, that our cause is the better, but we have to keep on making it the better, which involves constant criticism.
Yours sincerely,
Geo. Orwell
[XVI, 2471, pp. 190-2; typewritten]
1.and 2.Foreshadowings of Nineteen Eighty-Four.
3.Compare Nineteen Eighty-Four, p. 72, 'If there is hope, wrote Winston, it lies in the proles'.
To Leonard Moore*
8 June 1944
10a Mortimer Crescent NW 6
Dear Mr Moore,
Many thanks for your letter.1 It is awkward about Gollancz. I don't however remember anything in that contract about full-length novels. As I remember it, it simply referred to my next three works of fiction (you could verify that from the contract.) If so, Animal Farm which is certainly a work of fiction (and any way what is 'full-length') would be one of them. But even so there is one more novel to be accounted for. Do you think it would be possible to arrange with Cape that Gollancz had the refusal of my next novel (or two novels if Animal Farm doesn't count), on the understanding that all other works went to Cape, including novels after the Gollancz contract ran out? In that case I should only be going away from Cape for one or at most two books. (Incidentally, I don't know when I shall write another novel. This doesn't seem a propitious time for them.) I shouldn't in any case go to Gollancz again for non-fiction books. His politics change too fast for me to keep up with them. Could you find out what Cape thinks about that?
Meanwhile how do we stand about the book of reprints? Cape could have that too if he wants it. But the Dickens essay, which I should like to reprint, was in a Gollancz book. Has he the copyright of that, or have I? I have only one more essay to do, then I can start assembling the book.
I am sorry about Keep the Aspidistra Flying, but I don't think it worth reprinting a book I don't care about. If you tell Lane's I don't want that one done I dare say they'll be readier to close with Coming up for Air.2
I hope it will be O.K. with Cape and this book won't have to start on its rounds once again. I do want it to see the light this year if possible.
Yours sincerely
E. A. Blair
[XVI, 2485, pp. 250-1; typewritten]
1.Jonathan Cape wrote to Victor Gollancz on 26 May 1944 to say that he was inclined to publish Animal Farm, and to publish Orwell's future work. He wished to know whether that would be acceptable to Gollancz. On 1 June, Gollancz wrote to Moore, pointing out that he had a contract dated 1 February 1937 to publish three novels by Orwell, only one of which, Coming Up for Air, had been delivered. He argued that his rejection of Animal Farm did not affect that agreement. Moore then wrote to Orwell--his letter has not been traced--and this is Orwell's response.
2.Penguin Books did not publish Coming Up for Air in Orwell's lifetime. It was reprinted in the first of Secker's Uniform series in May 1948.
To Leonard Moore*
24 June 1944
10a Mortimer Crescent NW 6
Dear Mr Moore,
It is a pity about Cape's.1 I rang up T. S. Eliot, telling him the circumstances, and shall give him the other copy of the MS on Monday. I have no doubt Eliot himself would be on my side in this matter, but, as he says, he might not be able to swing the rest of the board of Faber's.
About the contract with Gollancz. If 30,000 words is not 'full-length', what does amount to full-length? Is an actual amount of words named in our existing contract? 2 If not, could we get from Gollancz a definite statement as to what he considers a full-length work of fiction. It is clearly very unsatisfactory to have this clause in the contract without a clear definition of it.
Yours sincerely
Eric Blair
[XVI, 2494, pp. 265-6; typewritten]
1.Jonathan Cape wrote to Victor Gollancz on 26 May 1944 to say that he was inclined to publish Animal Farm. His principal reader, Daniel George, and C. V. Wedgwood, then working for Cape, both strongly urged publication. However, on 19 June 1944, Cape wrote to Leonard Moore to say he would not publish the book. He did have some anxiety about Orwell having to offer his next two works of fiction to Gollancz, but the basis for the rejection was the representation made to him by 'an important official in the Ministry of Information' whom he had consulted. He had come to the conclusion that it would be 'highly ill-advised to publish [it] at the present time', partly because it was not a generalised attack on dictatorships but was aimed specifically at the Soviets, and partly because the 'choice of pigs as the ruling caste' would be especially offensive. (Crick gives the full text of this letter, with background details, pp. 454-56.) Inez Holden, in a letter to Ian Angus of 27 May 1967, summarised Cape's reason for the rejection and Orwell's reaction: 'He said he couldn't publish that as he was afraid "Stalin wouldn't like it". George was amused at this. I will quote what he said on this: "Imagine old Joe (who doesn't know one word of any European language) sitting in the Kremlin reading Animal Farm and saying 'I don't like this'"'. It is now known that the 'important official in the Ministry of Information' was Peter Smollett, the alias for Peter Smolka, an Austrian who had come to England in the 1930s and was a Soviet spy, codename 'Abo'. Smollett's deception was so successful that he was not only appointed OBE by a grateful Britain, but the Soviets thought he had been turned and came to disregard him (see The Lost Orwell, pp. 207, 210-12).
2.Annotated in Moore's office: 'Agreement only states "full-length."'
To T. S. Eliot*
28 June 1944
10a Mortimer Crescent NW 6
(or Tribune CEN 2572) Dear Eliot,
This Ms.1 has been blitzed which accounts for my delay in delivering it & its slightly crumpled condition, but it is not damaged in any way.
I wonder if you could be kind enough to let me have Messrs. Faber's decision fairly soon. If they are interested in seeing more of my work, I could let you have the facts about my existing contract with Gollancz, which is not an onerous one nor likely to last long.
If you read this MS. yourself you will see its meaning which is not an acceptable one at this moment, but I could not agree to make any alterations except a small one at the end which I intended making any way. Cape or the MOI, I am not certain which from the wording of his letter, made the imbecile suggestion that some other animal than the pigs might be made to represent the Bolsheviks. I could not of course make any change of that description.
Yours sincerely
Geo. Orwell
Could you have lunch with me one of the days when you are in town?
[XVI, 2496, p. 269; handwritten]
1.Of Animal Farm. The Orwells' flat was bombed on the very day he da
ted his letter to Eliot.
To John Middleton Murry*
14 July 1944
Tribune
Dear Murry,
Thanks for your letter 1. I have not the text by me, but you wrote in an article in the Adelphi something that ran more or less as follows: 'We are in the habit of describing the war between Japan and China as though it were a war in the European sense. But it is nothing of the kind, because the average Chinese expects to be conquered. That is what the history of thousands of years has taught him to expect. China will absorb Japan, and Japan will energise China. And so also with India.'
If this is not praise and encouragement of the Japanese invasion of China, and an invitation to the Japanese to go on and invade India, I don't know what it is. It takes no account of what has been happening in China since 1912 and uses exactly the same argument ('these people are used to being conquered') that was always brought forward to justify our own rule in India. In any case its moral is, 'don't help the Chinese'
As to the general charge of 'praising violence' which your correspondent refers to. Many remarks you have made in recent years seem to me to imply that you don't object to violence if it is violent enough. And you certainly seem or seemed to me to prefer the Nazis to ourselves, at least so long as they appeared to be winning.
If you'll send the book along I'll naturally be glad to give it a notice, but I might have to turn it over to someone else, though I'll do it myself if possible. I am smothered under work, and also I've been bombed out and we have a very young baby,2 all of which adds to one's work.
Yours,
George Orwell
[XVI, 2509, p. 288; typewritten]