The Letters of T. S. Eliot, Volume 1: 1898-1922 (116 page)

TS
Texas

3 April 1922

12 Wigmore St

Dear Mr Knopf,

According to the terms of our contract for Poems, you will remember, I was to offer you my next two books, i.e.
The Sacred Wood
and the next thereafter. I have now a poem of about 450 lines which I wish to publish as a small book, of about thirty pages. It is, I think, a good one.

I have no desire to evade or withdraw from the terms of the contract, but I have already received an unsolicited offer of $150 down against 15 per cent royalty from Mr Liveright, whom I met in Paris, for publication in the autumn. This is what I should have asked in any case. If you do not care to take the poem will you let me know immediately? Also, if you do. I am anxious to get the poem published as soon as possible. Perhaps you would
prefer an option on the next prose book, when it is ready, which will not be for a year or so.
¹

With kind regards,

your very truly,
T. S. Eliot

1–On 1 May, Knopf replied that ‘in view of the fact that you are anxious to have the new book out at once, it is best for you to accept Mr Liveright’s offer’. But he looked forward eagerly to TSE’s ‘next prose book, option on which you were good enough to offer me in exchange for the
Poems
’.

CC
Valerie Eliot

3 April 1922

12 Wigmore St

Dear Lucy,

I am enclosing (1) receipt for gasbill for the December quarter: this I paid some time ago, as I found it here on arrival, and thought it best, as it was overdue, to pay it and collect it from you afterwards; (2) John’s bill for electricity for the same quarter, which seems pretty late; if you have paid it already send me the receipt and I will take the matter up with him; (3) John’s rent due March 25th. I understood from Vivien that you said you had sent the money to him already; in that case let me know.

In writing to John will you let him know that you are not taking the flat on, and
also
will you please tell him that I will see to the disposition of the furniture at the end of the lease? I don’t want him to wonder why I am taking the furniture out when the time comes.

I would have written before, and sent this gasbill, but have been very over busy, and also Vivien was very ill indeed from the moment we arrived. I hope that there is some prospect of your returning to Europe – especially now that Vivien is so much at home on the continent, and evidently really needs to get away from London and from England for long periods together.

I hope that your father’s health is not now a cause for anxiety.

Very sincerely,
[T. S. E.] 

TS
Princeton

4 April 1922

12 Wigmore St

Dear Miss Beach,

Thank you very much for sending the beautiful
broché
copy of
Ulysses
on faith; it also comes most opportunely in that it provides me with wrapping for returning you the unbound sheets. I am sorry that I have cut some of the pages; I was expecting to have it bound here. I am posting you the sheets, registered, tomorrow.

I am distressed and indignant at this news. If you cared to entrust me with the names of the mentioned literary critics I could make, gradually, discreet investigations about the conspiracy. I presume you have documentary evidence of their having
asked
for the book, in the form of letters to yourself. I might be in a position later to give publicity to the affair, if that were possible and desirable.
²
Perhaps, however, you prefer to keep these secrets to yourself. I thank you for the enclosure, which I will preserve. In any case, believe me,

your obliged obedient servant,
T. S. Eliot 

1–Sylvia Beach (1887–1962), American expatriate who in Nov. 1919 opened Shakespeare & Company, a bookshop and lending library, at 8 rue Dupuytren, Paris, moving two years later to 12 rue de l’Odéon. Her customers included JJ (she published
Ulysses
), Gide, Maurois, Valéry, EP, Hemingway and Gertrude Stein. TSE wrote in a tribute (‘Miss Sylvia Beach’,
The Times,
13 Oct. 1962), ‘I made the acquaintance of Sylvia Beach, and at the same time of her friend Adrienne Monnier, on a visit to Paris early in the nineteen twenties, and thereafter saw them frequently during that decade. Only the scattered survivors of the Franco-
Anglo-American
literary world of Paris of that period, and a few others like myself who made frequent excursions across the Channel, know how important a part these two women played in the artistic and intellectual life of those years.’

2–Though there was probably no ‘conspiracy’, the dearth of British reviews of
Ulysses
made JJ suspicious too. He wrote to Harriet Shaw Weaver on 10 Apr., ‘There is a rumour here that certain critics who had asked for press copies and obtained them had decided to boycott the book. I am inclined to believe it’ (
Letters
, I, ed. Stuart Gilbert, 1957). TSE wrote later (‘Miss Sylvia Beach’), ‘No tribute to Sylvia Beach would do her justice that did not stress her services to James Joyce. But for two generous and devoted women – Harriet Weaver and Sylvia Beach – I do not know how Joyce could have survived or how his works could have got published.’ 

?
TS

5 April 1922

12 Wigmore St

Monsieur,

M. Valery Larbaud m’a donné votre adresse, et en vous écrivant je me mets sous sa protection.

Je me suis chargé de l’initiation d’une nouvelle revue littéraire à Londres, qui devrait paraître par trimestre. Dans cette revue je voudrais présenter à l’élite parmi les amateurs anglais des belles lettres les représentants les plus importants de la pensée étrangère; à present, on ne connaît, et très mal d’ailleurs, que la pensée française. Je voudrais canaliser vers Londres les courants étrangers les plus profonds. Ainsi, je veux me mettre en rapport avec les écrivains et les redacteurs de revues les plus illustres de l’étranger.

Si vous regardez mon projet d’un oeil favorable, j’ose espérer que vous daignerez me laisser souhaiter un article de vous; nous serions tout heureux de pouvoir vous présenter aux lecteurs anglais les plus accueillants. Nous comptons faire paraître le premier numéro au mois de juin, ou au mois de septembre au plus tard.

La revue sera subventionée par Viscountess Rothermere; à present nous ne pouvons offrir que la somme modeste de £10 les 5000 mots; et un article ne devrait pas dépasser par beaucoup cette étendue; naturellement, nous accepterions aussi des morceaux plus courts. Nous nous chargerions du travail de traduction.

En comptant beaucoup sur votre appui, je vous prie, Monsieur, de recevoir l’expression de mes sentiments les plus distingués.

T. S. Eliot
²
 

1–Antonio Marichalar (1893–1973), Spanish literary critic; contributor to
El Sol
and La
Revista de Occidente
(edited by José Ortega y Gasset). He was to write on ‘Contemporary Spanish Literature’ in C. 1: 1 (Oct. 1922), and took responsibility for the regular ‘Madrid Chronicle’ and ‘Spanish Chronicle’, 1926–38.

2–
Translation
: Sir, M. Valery Larbaud gave me your address, and in writing to you I place myself under his protection.

I am responsible for starting a new literary review in London, which should appear quarterly. In this review I would like to introduce an elite readership of English letters to the most important representatives of foreign thought; at present only French thought is known about, and poorly at that. I would like to channel towards London the deepest foreign currents. With this in mind, I want to put myself in contact with the most distinguished writers and editors of reviews from abroad.

If you look favourably on my project, I hope you will be willing to offer an article of your own; we would be very happy to introduce your work to the most receptive English readership. We are counting on the first number appearing in June, or in the month of September at the latest.

The review will be financed by Viscountess Rothermere; at present we are only able to offer the sum of £10 per 5000 words, and an article should not go much beyond that limit; naturally we also accept shorter pieces. We would be responsible for the work of translation.

Counting very much on your support, I beg you to accept my deepest respects. T. S. Eliot

MS
BL

[6? April 1922]

[London]

Dear Sydney

The only person I have to whom I can give you a note is Vanderpyl. I will send it to Foyot,
¹
as I have had to be out all evening and just got in before the post. I do hope you will find what you want in Paris and both be much better for it. In haste

Yrs aff.
Tom.

Directly I have time I will send a line to Joyce about you. 

1–The Hotel Foyot, rue de Tournon, Paris, where the Schiffs lived for many months, and where they would seek to entertain Proust. See also Richard Davenport-Hines,
A Night at the Majestic: Proust and the Great Modernist Dinner Party of
1922 (2006). 

MS
Texas

10 April 1922

12 Wigmore St

Dear Mr Sturge Moore,

Thank you very much for your letter which encourages me to hope that you may have something for me by September 1st. If and as soon as you are moved I hope you will let me know, and what the subject is. I only suggested Murry as a sort of stalking horse, and because I was exasperated to hear that a letter of yours about his filthy
¹
Flaubert article
²
had been omitted from
The Times.
I am very much flattered by what you say of my book (which was disliked by the Right and the Left) but of course, if (as I hope) you contribute to a very early number, it might be more fitting to have some other subject. But please be sure of the very high importance I attach to securing something from you; and I shall importune you soon again.

Yours sincerely
T. S. Eliot 

1–At TSE’s request this ‘deplorable’ adjective was burnt from the holograph before his letters to Sturge Moore were sold. He did not remember the content ‘but there seems to me no excuse for applying’ the word to it. ‘This is not only immoderate but is a very loose and inaccurate use of … “filthy”, since I cannot believe there was anything obscene in an article by Murry, or, indeed in anything appearing in those days in the
Times Literary Supplement’
(letter to Mrs Ursula Bridge, 25 Mar. 1959).

2–JMM, ‘Gustave Flaubert’,
TLS
, 15 Dec. 1921, 833–4. 

MS
BL

10 April 1922

12 Wigmore St

Dear Sydney,

I am writing to tell you for Vivien who is very tired from her journey home with a temperature of 100, among fearful crowds: so much so that three trains were run. I think she was most wise to make up her mind as she did, so quickly, to cut her losses and come home, ill as she was. She stood no chance of getting well quickly in a Paris hotel. I regret now that I urged her to go. If you remember, she had been so ill here up to the last and had not really recovered. She sends you both her love, and it is not necessary to say how much she regrets having had no opportunity to see a good deal of you in Paris, which you know she had looked forward to for so long.

Ever yrs. affectionately
Tom.

I shall write in answer to your letter in a few days time. 

MS
Texas

Wednesday [12? April 1922]

12 Wigmore St

My dear Mary,

I rang you up tonight but you were said to be out – I find from the doctor that Vivien’s temperature has kept steadily about 100, and he says that she must keep very quiet for the next day or so and ought not to see anyone or talk, as the first thing is to get her temperature down. She is frightfully vexed, but it can’t be helped: she mustn’t see you tomorrow; she told me to tell you that the moment she was allowed to see anyone, she should send someone to telephone to you to try to arrange if you can come. She said to tell you that she had several most
important
matters to discuss with you, so she wants to lose no time in seeing you.

I enjoyed last evening very much, for my part, I assure you – I was afraid that I was tired and not in good form – but I hope I can do better soon – and see you before your party.

affectionately
Tom

MS
Professor Waterlow

Monday [17 April? 1922]

12 Wigmore St

My dear Sydney,

I was very glad to hear from you and to know both that you are settled and that you are not going to Genoa. That is very good. I have been laid up for the past week with a chill and a temperature which I have not been able quite to get rid of, and hardly expect to find it wise to get out in the evening for some days. I shall I hope be able to come on the following Thursday.

I rather want to see J. M.’s book. Vivien read it and gave me a pretty good idea of it. According to her there are passages where one would say that it was – Sullivan speaking. But one or two good things. I shall certainly read the book on style.
¹

It hardly seems to me worthwhile for one to say anything about
Ulysses
for six months at least – until all the imbeciles who like and dislike it for insincere reasons have tired themselves. But when you’ve finished it I should like to discuss it with you.

Please give Margery my kindest regards.

Yours ever
T.S.E.