The Letters of T. S. Eliot, Volume 1: 1898-1922 (138 page)

TS
Texas

27 November 1922

The Criterion
, 9 Clarence Gate Gdns

Dear Sanderson,

I should have rung you up to discuss your last two letters with you but have been far too busy. I have carefully gone over the terms of Hachette which you sent me.
¹
It is not quite clear to me just what advantages the
Criterion
gains in compensation for the rights given but I shall get you to explain that to me when we next meet. I return to you the circular which I have altered only to the extent of adding a few names which of course should be inserted in alphabetical order. It seems to me that Hachette ought to print this circular at their own expense and it seems to me still more cheeky of them if they suggest that the
Criterion
should pay for the insertion of an advertisement in a paper which is merely an organ of their own house. Do you not agree with me?

I hope I can find time to come in one afternoon this week and discuss these questions with you.

Does Lady Rothermere propose to have a proper contract with Hachette and if so for how long does she propose to commit the paper to this arrangement?

I think it would be worthwhile to try to get Gyldendal
²
as well for distribution in Denmark and Norway. I have the names of two or three good Swedish publishers which I will give you for that country, as I do not suppose that Gyldendal are very powerful in Sweden.

I do not in the least understand what Lady Rothermere means by wanting my photograph and Miss Sinclair’s and Saintsbury’s and I am not at all sure that the latter will care to have their photographs in the
Daily
Mirror
. I will try to ring you up for a word tomorrow and hope to see you later in the week. I am writing to the two people in question to remind them about the copy.

Yours ever,
T.S.E.

1–Hachette was the French distributor.

2–Denmark’s largest publisher, founded 1770.

TS
Beinecke

27 November 1922

9 Clarence Gate Gdns

Dear Scofield,

I am very glad to see from your letter that your peregrinations have brought you back again to Vienna which seems a more suitable habitat for your subtle and cynical spirit than the commercial turmoil of New York. I am glad to hear that the succession of the London Letter is to fall upon Mortimer whose single essay in that line exhibited a knowledge of events which put me into shade. I am sure that everybody will be satisfied with the transference, and I hope to be able to present
The Dial
with specimens of the heavy sort of work of which I am less incompetent.

I must congratulate you upon the maintained quality and increasing reputation of
The Dial
. The issues up to date certainly constitute an achievement of which you and your colleagues may well be very proud. I think that the Viennese stuff you have had is first-rate and I think you have made a particularly good stroke in securing the collaboration of Hofmannsthal.
¹
I am trying to dig out a few good writers in various parts
of Europe for
The Criterion
and I hope that if any of them strike you as interesting you will share them with me.

The Dial
is gradually establishing itself in London but so far only among the people who make it their business to find out what is good. I think that if you could have a London office or even simply a London Agency to which English subscribers could address themselves, and if you could advertise a bit in some of the best English papers, that your circulation would be greatly increased. For example, two of my friends who order
The Dial
regularly from a London bookseller were unable to get a November number, and were actually informed by the bookseller that
The Dial
had collapsed and ceased publication.
²
If you had a London office or an active business agent here such mistakes would not happen.

Sincerely yours,
T.S.E.

1–Hugo von Hofmannsthal (1874–1929), Austrian playwright, poet, essayist, and librettist for Richard Strauss. The
Dial
had printed stories by him (July and Aug.), and a ‘Letter from Vienna’ (Oct.).

2–The previous day, HWE had written to Charlotte Eliot: ‘Did you say you had
the New York Times’
review of
The Waste Land
? I have one if you would like it. The
Dial
sends a postal asking subscribers to return copies and offering them the next two copies (Dec. and Jan.) in exchange, the demand for the November number having been tremendous. I think they said they had about a thousand unfilled orders.’ 

Published 30 November 1922

9 Clarence Gate Gdns,
N.W.1

Sir,

My attention has been called to two paragraphs about myself in the issue of the
Liverpool Post
of the 16th of this month. The two paragraphs contain a number of statements which are quite untrue.

No such collection or presentation as that mentioned ever took place, and I never made the statement attributed to me. I have not received £800 or any part of such sum, nor have I received any sum from ‘Bel Esprit’, nor have I left the bank. The ‘Bel Esprit’ scheme in the manifesto referred to by your correspondent is not in existence with my consent or approval. Finally, the appearance of my poem in the
Criterion
is not the result of any scheme whatever.

The circulation of untrue stories of this kind causes me profound astonishment and annoyance and may also do me considerable harm. They
are a reflection on me and on my dealings with my friends. I trust that you will take immediate steps to put this matter right.

Yours etc.,
T. S. Eliot
¹

1–The editor signed his name to this canny apology, printed beneath TSE’s letter: ‘We are extremely sorry that our contributor should have fallen into the mistake which Mr. Eliot specifies. We are quite sure that nothing except a tribute to Mr. Eliot’s high position as a critic and poet was intended in what our contributor wrote. But clearly he was misinformed, and we must express to Mr. Eliot our sincere regret that anything calculated to give him pain or annoyance should have appeared in our columns.’

TS
Texas

1 December 1922

The Criterion, 9
Clarence Gate Gdns

Dear Cobden-Sanderson,

I rang you up today to tell you that I have the manuscript of two more articles for you. Had I been able I should have taken them with me and left them at your office myself, as I do not like to entrust them to the post. If your man is free and if it is desirable to save the time, the envelope will be here tomorrow morning if he calls for it any time after 10.30.

J. W. N. Sullivan has been unable to finish the article he promised me, for private reasons beyond his control. I shall therefore choose over the weekend something to take its place and will let you have it by Monday. I have several papers to choose from, and if there is a little space over I have a short thing of my own if necessary.

I have received from the Atlantic Literary Agency translation of a story by Pirandello which I think is quite good and which I wish to accept.
¹
Is it safe to assume that these people have the proper translation rights and publication rights in this country, or should I ask them for an explicit statement to this effect before accepting the story?

Yours ever,
T.S.E.

PS I return herewith a postcard in very bad French from a gentleman in Spain named Torre. Will you send him a copy and I will write and ask him to send me copies of any papers in which he notices the
Criterion
. We need not continue to send it to him if the results do not justify it.

Will you write to Lady R. (I can’t as she did not mention it to me) and say that I have no copies of my photograph, but a London photographer
has a very good one which he will sell if she authorises the expense: and ask her (TACTFULLY NOT TRUCULENTLY)!!
where
she wants to use it and in what way?

I hope your legal difficulties are clearing themselves up.

See
Liverpool
Post
for 30 November 1922. I will send you a copy. 

1–See ‘The Shrine’, C. 1: 2 (Jan. 1923), by Luigi Pirandello (1867–1936), author of
Six Characters in Search of an Author
(1921). 

MS
Texas

Friday [1 December 1922]

9 Clarence Gate Gdns

Dear Mary,

I was
very
sorry not to see you. I was in a very deep sleep, and my secretary was coming at 8, and as my nights are seldom more than five hours I usually take a nap before dinner. Vivienne was delighted with the beautiful flowers and wants me to say that she will write to you, and is not averse to seeing you at the end of next week.

Affectionately
Tom

She was out at the hairdressers’ when you came, or she wd have rushed out in the hall to greet you.

CC
Valerie Eliot

1 December 1922

[London]

My dear Mr Seldes,

I presume that the announcement of the
Dial
prize is now made public,
¹
as the December number must be out, but I think it is just as well that I should let you know that the award has leaked out and reached this country several weeks ago. I should have written to you before but my time has been engrossed by another matter of which I shall tell you. A friend of mine congratulated me a fortnight ago on having received the
Dial
prize, and when I expressed astonishment, he gave me the following information. He told me that Alfred Kreymborg
²
had given him the information with the remark that it was confidential, but that several days later Kreymborg and John Gould Fletcher had lunch with him and had discussed the award quite openly, as an accomplished fact, in the presence of one or two other people,
and without any mention of secrecy. I of course, on the understanding I had with you, had not mentioned the matter to anyone, and I am sure that it was not your desire that the award should be known before the public announcement was made in the
Dial
. I was therefore very much embarrassed on being told of it, and stated that I had only informal knowledge of the matter; and I asked my friend to mention it to no one else. But as there were several other people present on the occasion on which it was discussed, it is very likely now known to a good many.

I have no idea how Fletcher or Kreymborg came by the knowledge and had I had the time during the past fortnight I should have attempted to see one of them and investigate his sources. I understand that Kreymborg has now returned to New York, and I daresay that you will be in a better position to find out who betrayed your confidence than I am. It might have been, and for all I know may still be, very annoying in its consequences for both the
Dial
and myself.

I think it is always as well to trace rumours to their source. I enclose for your private and confidential information two cuttings from
The Liverpool
Post, one issuing a libellous falsehood about me, and the other retracting the statement. I also enclose a copy of a letter which I have addressed to
The Liverpool Post
. This matter has given me considerable trouble and I have taken a good deal of expensive legal advice. As I have neither the time nor the private means of conducting a protracted lawsuit, I shall not pursue the matter any farther. I have no knowledge of the source from which this story emanated, but it is obviously a malicious attack from some concealed enemy in London, not necessarily the writer of the paragraph, although it is bad enough to repeat such a story with no foundation. Please do not mention this matter to anyone, as I shall only communicate it gradually to certain persons. But I should be very much obliged if you could keep your eye open for the appearance of this or any similar libel in America. It is possible that the story may be copied by some American paper, and it is also possible that the same person may try to circulate it direct in America where I have not the same means for arresting its spread. I hope that you got my article in time for the December number;
³
if not,

I am very sorry, and you must console yourself with the thought that it is the last time that you will be worried by my unpunctuality. I hope to send you something quite soon but the date of its publication will be at your convenience.

Yours always sincerely,
[T. S. E.]

1–
The New York Times Book Review
had announced the
Dial
award (to ‘Thomas Seymour Eliot’) on 26 Nov. 1922, 12; repr. in
T. S. Eliot
, ed. Grant, 135–6.

2–Alfred Kreymborg (1883–1966), poet, playwright and puppeteer.

 3–TSE’s ‘London Letter’ on Marie Lloyd, repr. with revision in
C
. 1: 2, Jan. 1923 (
SE
).