The Letters of T. S. Eliot, Volume 1: 1898-1922 (129 page)

1–See letter to EP of 22 Oct. 1922 and note.

TS
Beinecke

31 August 1922

The Criterion, 9
Clarence Gate Gdns  

Dear Cobden-Sanderson,  

Thank you for your letter of to-day’s date, which I have been working over this evening. The plan suggested has certain disadvantages; it limits the foreign contribution to one (short one), it reduces the number of contributions to six, and it provides proportionately too large a space to be filled by editorial matter. Also, by leaving the Larbaud over as well as the Spaniards I shall be faced with the same difficulty in the following issue.  

My alternative is this, if my calculations are not quite incorrect. I find that the original estimate with which your printers provided you gives the
cost of 600 copies of 96 pages as £59 2s, and the cost of 600 copies of 128 pages as £75 2s 6d. I therefore assume that 600 copies of
112
pages would cost around £67.

I calculate also that with the matter on which the printers have furnished this last estimate of space, and the
rest
of
The Waste Land
, we should almost fill the 112 pages, leaving the one to three pages probably for editorials, and I do not want more than four. (ten out of ninety-six would be far too much a one-man show).
¹
That is, the number would include

I enclose the rest of
The Waste Land
again, and would be grateful if you would find out from the printers (1) cost of extra sixteen pages (2) estimate of space the rest of
Waste Land
needs. If there were in the end a few pages over I suppose they could be left blank as fly-leaves.

Of course, the sooner we can get the material into galley-proof, and get it to the printers and back again, the better.*

I am still waiting for Lady Rothermere’s address, but if the 112 pages can be done I undertake it on my own responsibility.

Yours ever
T. S. Eliot

* Saintsbury has returned completed the copy I sent him. So that’s all ready.

1–Parts I and II of
The Waste Land
ran to six pages. (In the event, the poem took up fifteen of the 104 pp. of the first issue of C.; the contents were as listed, with no editorial.)

TS
Valerie Eliot

31 August 1922

The Criterion,
9
Clarence Gate Gdns

Sir,

I take this opportunity of acknowledging an indebtedness, extending over many years, to your work, in connexion with the Elizabethan studies
which have always formed one of my strongest interests. It is with the justification of paying this tribute that I venture to solicit from you the honour of a contribution, at any time within the next six or nine months, of any piece of unpublished manuscript.

The enclosed circular gives some description of this quarterly. Besides general literary contributions, I am anxious to secure occasionally contributions from writers who have both literary distinction and more exact scholarship than the majority of those whose names you see. From my point of view anything from you on the subject of Elizabethan or Jacobean literature would fill a place which cannot be supplied by anyone else, and I hope that your point of view will not be unfavourable to mine. I am aware, of course, of the favour I am asking from anyone so preoccupied as you must be; I only hope that you may have, or may at some time wish to write, something which would appear more suitably in this review, and find a more select and judicious audience, than elsewhere.

We are at present limited to essays of about 5000 words in length; the present rates of payment are insignificant, being only £10 the 5000 words.

I fear that my name may be known to you only in a connexion which will hardly dispose you in my favour. I must say that I am quite aware that certain critics have chosen to make you responsible, in a way, for theories of mine which were certainly encouraged by your arguments, but which are by no means the inevitable conclusion from your arguments.
²
I am sorry that this has involved you in attack, and even abuse, which was primarily aimed at myself. They have thoroughly mistaken my meaning and perverted my words, as they have yours; but I am afraid that persons who are incapable of following an argument, or of distinguishing an argument intended to prove one thing from a theory intended to suggest the possibility of something on a wholly different plane, and who are guided entirely by their emotions, would be impenetrable to any explanations which I could give.

I am, Sir,

Your Obliged Obedient Servant,
T. S. Eliot

1–J. M. Robertson (1856–1933), Scottish critic, rationalist and politician, whose books included
Elizabethan Literature
(1914) and
Shakespeare and Chapman
(1917).

2–TSE’s ‘Hamlet and His Problems’, which began as a review of Robertson’s
The Problem of ‘Hamlet’
(1919), had been met with some adverse critical comment. Robert Lynd, in ‘Buried Alive’,
N
. 18 (4 Dec. 1920), spoke of TSE coming to ‘bury Hamlet, not to praise him’. Likewise, Arthur Clutton-Brock took TSE to task for his account of
Hamlet
as ‘an artistic failure’. TSE’s arguments, said Clutton-Brock, ‘are partly taken from Mr Robertson, though not stated with his accuracy, and partly Mr. Eliot’s own’ (‘The Case against “Hamlet”’, in
Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet
’ [1922], 14–32).

CC
Beinecke

31 August 1922

152 West 13th St, New York

Dear Doctor:

Quinn is out of town and the enclosed is my letter to him. You have already received Eliot’s letter, but I think that we are doing the right thing to go ahead. With Liveright I have arranged as follows. We pay them nothing and we publish the poem without the notes in our November issue. They bring out the book after our date of publication and we send them an order for 350 copies of the book at our usual discount (about 40%) and in connection with our advertising contract with them. We take the financial settlement by that time. (The idea, of course, is that we will push the book mightily in connection with our subscriptions. The book sells for $2 so that if it remains a total loss on our hands we will be paying about $350.) I have suggested that they number all the copies of the first edition, giving a bibliographical value to it, and they have promised to use no publicity mentioning the award until we release it. They do not ask for a refund of the first publication rights payment, and we can, as a matter of fact, pay Eliot our regular rate if that is considered necessary. That I did not mention to Quinn, as you notice.

We must assume that Eliot O.K.’s publication in
The Dial
without the notes. The one thing which troubles me in addition is Eliot’s remark about making the award the basis of a contract. It seems to me that he means something a little more definite than what you take it to mean, because he surely could not imagine bad faith on our part. I speculate: does he mean that he ought to have a more favourable contract with Liveright because he gets the award? It sounds unreasonable, because he gets the two thousand. Does he mean that he wants some sort of contract with us for the future? I shall, of course, not cable him until I hear from Quinn, so you have time to answer this letter. If cabling becomes necessary owing to delays it would certainly be in such terms as to make him realize that tentative conversations have led both Liveright and Quinn to be enthusiastic and that we will undertake any reasonable contract and ask permission to publish in November.
¹

The notes, by the way, are exceedingly interesting and add much to the poem, but don’t become interested in them because we simply cannot have them. Please write.

Faithfully yours,
[unsigned]

PS I have bought a Yeats play and as we had no definite rate for plays I said we would pay at a page rate of $8 a page, which is about what a page of prose comes to. The advantage of this is that we can use the small type and still not lose money by doing so. Please decide whether this small type is a good hunch or not, as I wrote to Thayer about it some time ago and have had no reply.
²

1–These terms were confirmed at Quinn’s office on 7 Sept. and in letters between Seldes and Liveright, both dictated by Quinn. On the same day Quinn advised TSE: ‘The arrangement insures you (a) $150 from Liveright on publication under his contract, (b) the $2,000 award, and (c) the royalties for the publication of the poem in
The Dial
, which ought to be at least $10 a page … It was a close shave, and when the papers were all signed up, and I took Liveright and Seldes out to lunch, Seldes went to telephone to
The Dial
giving them notice about the publication of the poem in the next number.’

2–
The Player Queen
was printed in small type immediately after
The Waste Land.
 

TS
Valerie Eliot

4 September 1922

The Criterion
, 9 Clarence Gate Gdns

My dear Mr Robertson,

I am very happy to have your kind letter of the 3d and trust that you will not allow your search through your manuscripts to flag. Had you merely said ‘more than 5000 words’ I should not have been daunted (by your Shakespeare studies) but as you say ‘
far
more’ I suppose I must wait until you find something shorter. I accepted, and shall print, one manuscript of 8000 words for the first number, but without having realised the extent to which it was to disturb the arrangement of the other contents.
¹

Please remember that the choice of subject rests entirely with you; if it is ‘off’ the Shakespeare field, I shall undoubtedly return to you later for something ‘on’ it; and if it is ‘on’, I shall appeal to you later for something ‘off’. The study of Elizabethan blank verse development would suit me admirably. It is precisely a subject on which I have been supposed to be writing a set of articles for the
Times
, for the past year; but life and vicissitudes have intervened; and now that I hear you have dealt with the subject, I am humbly thankful that I did not venture in before you.
²
Or alternatively, your reference to having once hoped to establish a decent method in criticism suggests a very valuable essay. I must say that I have shared your hope, and share your despondency.

May I be precise and say that I should like to receive something from you either by the 1st November or by the 1st February (but of course preferably the earlier date)? I like to allow good time in order to be able to insist upon accurate composition by the printers.

One justification for ‘exoticism’ is that at the present epoch it is necessary to summon aid from the whole of Europe, in order to muster enough good brains to make possible even a
quarterly
review.

I have good reason to believe that the review signed ‘C. B.’ was written by Mr Clive Bell the art critic. One reason is that he has conceived Hamlet in what he believes to be his own image, but I have others. I am told that Mr [Clutton-]Brock showed him his manuscript before publication.
¹
It is needless to say that I am immensely interested in both of your forthcoming volumes.
²

With the most cordial thanks I remain,

Your Obedient Servant,
T. S. Eliot

1–‘The Case against
Hamlet
’, the
TLS
leading article of 18 May 1922 (which was written by John Cann Bailey, not by Clive Bell), discussed Robertson and TSE as well as the book they ‘provoked’, Arthur Clutton-Brock,
Shakespeare’s
‘
Hamlet
’ (1922).

2–J.M. Robertson,
The Shakespearian Canon
(1922), and
Explorations: Essays in Literature and Philosophy
(1923).

MS
Texas

7 September 1922

The Criterion, 9
Clarence Gate Gdns

Dear Cobden-Sanderson,

I am very sorry indeed to hear your bad news.
¹
I will not trouble you either with business or expressions of sympathy, but will write to you on Monday.

Yours cordially
T. S. Eliot

1–RC-S’s father, the printer T. J. Cobden-Sanderson, died on 7 Sept. 1922, aged eighty-two.

TS
copy NYPL

7 September 1922

[New York]

Dear Mr Liveright:

This is to confirm the understanding between me as Managing Editor of
The Dial
and yourself with reference to the publication in
The Dial
of Mr Eliot’s poem
The Waste Land
as follows:

We are to publish the text of the poem, without the notes, in the November
Dial
, which will be published about October 20th. We will not publish the prose notes in our publication of the poem. The poem will be copyrighted together with other literary matter in
The
Dial
.

In consideration of your consent and agreement to the above publication of the poem, we agree to purchase from you, on publication, 350 copies of the book at the usual forty per cent. discount of the retail price. We will pay for the books purchased within six months of their delivery, and this arrangement regarding the purchase of said books from you shall not apply to or be considered part of our separate arrangement regarding advertisements and book purchases.

I have no hesitation in saying to you personally that
The
Dial
, on the merits of Mr Eliot’s work as a whole, intends to give to Mr Eliot its this year’s annual award of two thousand dollars ($2,000) for services to the cause of letters.

In connection with our publication of the poem in
The
Dial
we will announce its publication in book form by your firm with notes.

It is our understanding that your contract with Mr Eliot for the publication of the book, both as to time and so forth, will be modified in order to perform this arrangement.

Will you kindly confirm the foregoing.

Yours very truly,
The
Dial
by
[            ] Managing Editor.