George Orwell: A Life in Letters (32 page)

[
Eileen wrote at the top of the letter
:] Gwen’s address: Dr. Gwen O’Shaughnessy, 24 Crooms Hill, Greenwich, London S.E.10

[XI, 535, pp. 337–8; typewritten]

1
.
Among Orwell’s papers were three issues of
Independent News
:
a special number of, probably, late November or early December 1938 devoted to ‘The P.O.U.M. Trial in Barcelona’; No. 59, 16 December 1938, with an article titled ‘After the P.O.U.M. Trial’; and No. 60, 23 December 1938, which included a report on George Kopp’s imprisonment and release. Orwell and Eileen visited him in prison. (For full details, see XI, 3
59, pp. 338–9 and VI, pp. 171–78.)

2
.
See letter to Leonard Moore,
28.11.38
.

3
.
See
23.2.39
and
19.3.39
to Jack Common.

4
.
The postscript, apart from the first three words, is in Eileen’s hand.

To Herbert Read*

5 March 1939

Boîte Postale 48

Marrakech

Dear Read,

Thanks so much for your letter. I am probably leaving this country about the 22nd or 23rd of March and should be in England by the end of the month. I shall probably be in London a few days and I’ll try and arrange to come and see you. If I could help with
Revolt
¹
I’d like to, though till I’ve seen what kind of paper it is to be I don’t know whether I could be any use. The trouble is that if I am writing a book as I generally am I find it almost impossible to do any other creative work, but on the other hand I
like
doing reviews, if they would want anything in that line. If we could keep a leftwing but non-Stalinist review in existence (it’s all a question of money, really) I believe a lot of people would be pleased. People aren’t all fools, they must begin soon to see through this ‘antifascist’ racket. A thought that cheers me a lot is that each generation, which in literature means about ten years, is in revolt against the last, and just as the Audens etc. rose in revolt against the Squires
²
and Drinkwaters,
³
there must be another gang about due to rise against the Audens.

About the press business. I quite agree that it’s in a way absurd to start preparing for an underground campaign
⁴
unless you know who is going to campaign and what for, but the point is that if you don’t make some preparations beforehand you will be helpless when you want to start, as you are sure to sooner or later. I cannot believe that the time when one can buy a printing press with no questions asked will last forever. To take an analogous case. When I was a kid you could walk into a bicycle-shop or ironmonger’s and buy any firearm you pleased, short of a field gun, and it did not occur to most people that the Russian revolution and the Irish civil war would bring this state of affairs to an end. It will be the same with printing presses etc. As for the sort of thing we shall find ourselves doing, the way I see the situation is like this. The chances of Labour or any left combination winning the election are in my opinion nil, and in any case if they did get in I doubt whether they’d be better than or much different from the Chamberlain lot. We are therefore in either for war in the next two years, or for prolonged war-preparation, or possibly only for sham war-preparations designed to cover up other objects, but in any of these cases for a fascising° process leading to an authoritarian regime, ie. some kind of austro-fascism. So long as the objective, real or pretended, is war against Germany, the greater part of the Left will associate themselves with the fascising° process, which will ultimately mean associating themselves with wage-reductions, suppression of free speech, brutalities in the colonies etc. Therefore the revolt against these things will have to be against the Left as well as the Right. The revolt will form itself into two sections, that of the dissident lefts like ourselves, and that of the fascists, this time the idealistic Hitler-fascists, in England more or less represented by Mosley. I don’t know whether Mosley will have the sense and guts to stick out against war with Germany, he might decide to cash in on the patriotism business, but in that case someone else will take his place. If war leads to disaster and revolution, the official Left having already sold out and been identified in the public mind with the war-party, the fascists will have it all their own way unless there is in being some body of people who are both anti-war and anti-fascist. Actually there will be such people, probably very great numbers of them, but their being able to do anything will depend largely on their having some means of expression during the time when discontent is growing. I doubt whether there is much hope of saving England from fascism of one kind or another, but clearly one must put up a fight, and it seems silly to be silenced when one might be making a row merely because one had failed to take a few precautions beforehand. If we laid in printing presses etc. in some discreet place we could then cautiously go to work to get together a distributing agency, and we could then feel ‘Well, if trouble does come we are ready.’ On the other hand if it doesn’t come I should be so pleased that I would not grudge a little wasted effort. As to money, I shall probably be completely penniless for the rest of this year unless something unexpected happens. Perhaps if we definitely decided on a course of action your friend Penrose
⁵
might put up something, and I think there are others who could be got to see the necessity. What about Bertrand Russell,
⁶
for instance? I suppose he has some money, and he would fall in with the idea fast enough if he could be persuaded that free speech is menaced.

When I get back I’ll write or ring up and try and arrange to meet. If you’re going to be in town about the beginning of April, or on the other hand going to be away or something, could you let me know? But better not write to the above as the letter might miss me. Write to:
at
:
24 Croom’s Hill, Greenwich SE.10.

Yours

Eric Blair

[XI, 536, pp. 340–1; typewritten]

1
.
Revolt!
, jointly edited by Vernon Richards* in London, ran for six issues, from
11 February to 3 June 1939. It aimed at presenting the Spanish civil war from an anti-Stalinist point of view.

2
.
John Squire (1884–1958; Kt.1933)
literary editor
New Statesman and Nation
, 1913–19; founded the
London Mercury
, and edited it, 1919–34. He stood for Parliament for Labour in 1918 and for the Liberals in 1924, unsuccessfully both times. Among the many books he wrote and edited were
A Book of Women’s Verse
(1921) and
The Comic Muse
(1925).

3
.
John Drinkwater (1882–1937), poet, playwright, and essayist, was evidently an object of particular scorn to Orwell; Gordon Comstock sneeringly refers to him as
Sir
John Drinkwater in
Keep the Aspidistra Flying
(
CW,
IV, p. 287
)
, though he was not knighted.

4
.
See letter to Read,
4.1.39
.

5
.
Roland Penrose (1900–1984; Kt., 1
966) was a painter and writer who used his independent means to support many painters and artistic and left-wing projects.

6
.
Bertrand Russell, 3rd Earl Russell (1872–1970), philosopher and Nobel Prize winner, was a prominent advocate for peace, and wrote and campaigned vigorously for it. Supported World War II and advocated threatening USSR with Atomic Bomb at start of Cold War. See also Orwell’s review of his
Power: A New Social Analysis
(XI, 520, pp. 311–2).

To Jack Common*

19 March 1939

Marrakech

Dear Jack,

Thanks so much for your good offices re. George Kopp.* He wrote telling us you had invited him to go to Wallington & that he wasn’t going, at which I dare say you were not unrelieved, though you’d have liked him, I think. It’s all rather awkward, Gwen O’Shaughnessy, Eileen’s sister in law, has been putting him up for about 2 months now & we can’t ask her to do so indefinitely. Meanwhile I don’t know if it is going to make difficulties about our moving in—there being no one there, I mean. If so be you wanted to move out before we could get back, ie. that some opportunity of another house arose, or something, I suppose it would be quite simple to arrange with old Hatchett to look after the creatures till we arrive. He knows we’ll make it up to him, & anyway, he’s very good & kind about undertaking anything like that. I don’t think we’ll reach London before April 2nd, & then I must go straight down & see my father, who I am afraid is dying, poor old man. It’s wonderful how he’s lasted through this winter, which must have been beastly cold in Suffolk, & he was too frail to be moved. He’s 81, so he’s had a pretty good innings, but what a hole it seems to leave when someone you have known since childhood goes. We can’t get back earlier because the boat we were to have sailed on on the 23rd has been delayed at sea in some way. Of course if something like that didn’t happen on any journey I take this wouldn’t be my life. However there’s a Japanese boat a few days later which has got to stop off at Casablanca to drop a cargo of tea & we are going to take that instead. I’ve never been on a Japanese boat before but I’m told they’re very good. We could go the way we came, across Spanish Morocco to Tangier, but it is intolerable if one has much luggage. Coming down we lost most of our luggage & didn’t get it back for weeks because at every station there is an enormous horde of Arabs all literally fighting for the job of porter, & whenever the train stops they invade it, grab all luggage they can see, carry it off & stow it away in any other trains that happen to be in the station, after which it steams away into various parts of Africa while you try to explain what has happened to people who don’t speak anything but arabic. I like to go as far as possible by sea, because on a ship at any rate there’s no question of getting out at the wrong station.

My novel’s finished, which is why I’m writing in pen, as it is being typed. I’ve heard from Richard [Rees], who’s at Perpignan & sounds pretty exhausted, as well he may be. I wonder if we can possibly get 5 years of respite before the next war. It doesn’t look like it. Anyway, thank God for a roof over one’s head & a patch of potatoes when the fun begins. I hope Muriel’s mating went through. It is a most unedifying spectacle, by the way, if you happened to watch it. Love to Mary & Peter. Eileen sends love. Don’t write because it would cross us. If any occasion to write, write to the Greenwich address.

Yours

Eric

P.S. Did my rhubarb come up, I wonder? I had a lot, & then last year the frost buggered it up. I don’t know whether it survives that or not.

[XI, 53
9, pp. 344–5; handwritten]

To Lydia Jackson*

[30 March 1939]

postcard
¹

Dear Lydia,

I knocked at the door of your flat & was very disappointed not to find you at home. I gathered from the hall porter that you weren’t actually away from London. I’ve got tomorrow to go down & see my parents for the week-end, but hope to see you when I get back, about Tuesday. Meanwhile if clever I
may
be able to look in for an hour tomorrow morning, so try & stay at home in the morning will you?

Love

Eric

[XI, 54
2A, p. 348; handwritten]

1
.
The postcard was of ‘A Café in the Faubourg Montmartre’ by Edgar Degas. It, and the next item, have been dated by reference to adjacent letters.
This, and the other letters, are not quite accurately reproduced in her
A Russian’s England
, pp. 430–31.

To Lydia Jackson*

Friday [31 March 1939]

36 High Street

Southwold

Dear Lydia,

You were mean not to stay at home this morning like I asked you. But perhaps you couldn’t. I rang up 3 times. Are you angry with me? I did write to you twice from Morocco & I don’t think you wrote to me. But listen. I am coming back to town Monday or Tuesday, & Eileen is going to stay down here a bit longer. I shall have to be in town several days to see to various things, so we can arrange to meet—unless you don’t want to. I’ll ring up.

Yours ever.

Eric.

[XI, 542B, p. 348; handwritten]

To Leonard Moore*

25 April 1939

The Stores

Wallington

Dear Mr Moore,

Many thanks for your letter. I am afraid you must be very overworked, with Miss Perriam away
¹
and having been unwell yourself, and I am sorry to trouble you with all this stuff.

I thought Gollancz might show fight. The book is, of course, only a novel and more or less unpolitical, so far as it is possible for a book to be that nowadays, but its general tendency is pacifist, and there is one chapter (Chapter i. of Part III—I suppose you haven’t seen the manuscript) which describes a Left Book Club meeting and which Gollancz no doubt objects to. I also think it perfectly conceivable that some of Gollancz’s Communist friends have been at him to drop me and any other politically doubtful writers who are on his list. You know how this political racket works, and of course it is a bit difficult for Gollancz, or at any rate Lawrence and Wishart, to be publishing books proving that persons like myself are German spies and at the same time to be publishing my own books. Meanwhile how does our contract stand? I didn’t see our last contract, which you may remember was drawn up while I was in Spain, but I understood from my wife that Gollancz undertook to publish my next three works of fiction and pay £100 in advance on each. He has also had this book in his advance lists three times, owing to the delay caused by my illness. But at the same time I think it would be much better not to pin him down to his contract if he is really reluctant to publish the book. To begin with he has treated me very well and I don’t want to make unpleasantness for him, and secondly if he really objects to the book he could hardly be expected to push it once published. It might be better to have a quite frank explanation with him. If we are to go to another publisher, whom do you recommend? I suppose it would be better to go to one of the big ones if they will have me, but meanwhile there will I suppose be considerable delays. It is all a great nuisance. I have earned little or no money since last spring and am infernally hard up and in debt, and I was looking to this book to see me through the summer while I get on with my next. I am also not completely decided about my next book, I have ideas for two books which I had thought of writing simultaneously, and if we are going to change publishers it might be necessary to talk that over too. So perhaps the sooner this business is settled the better. I am sorry to be such a nuisance.