George Orwell: A Life in Letters

by Peter Davison

  Yours sincerely

  Eric Blair

  [XIX, 3251, pp. 177–8; typewritten]

  1.Presumably proofs of the French translation of Animal Farm, published in October 1947.

  To George Woodcock*

  9 August 1947

  Barnhill

  Isle of Jura

  Dear George,

  I at last get round to answering your letter of 25th July. I am, as you say in principle prepared to do an article in the series you mention, but ‘in principle’ is about right, because I am busy and don’t want to undertake any more work in the near future. I am struggling with this novel which I hope to finish early in 1948. I don’t even expect to finish the rough draft before about October, then I must come to London for about a month to see to various things and do one or two articles I have promised, then I shall get down to the rewriting of the book which will probably take me 4 or 5 months. It always takes me a hell of a time to write a book even if I am doing nothing else, and I can’t help doing an occasional article, usually for some American magazine, because one must earn some money occasionally.

  I think probably I shall come back in November and we shall spend the winter here. I can work here with fewer interruptions, and I think we shall be less cold here. The climate, although wet, is not quite so cold as England, and it is much easier to get fuel. We are saving our coal as much as possible and hope to start the winter with a reserve of 3 tons, and you can get oil by the 40 gallon drum here, whereas last winter in London you had to go down on your knees to get a gallon once a fortnight. There are also wood and peat, which are a fag to collect but help out the coal. Part of the winter may be pretty bleak and one is sometimes cut off from the mainland for a week or two, but it doesn’t matter so long as you have flour in hand to make scones. Latterly the weather has been quite incredible, and I am afraid we shall be paying for it soon. Last week we went round in the boat and spent a couple of days on the completely uninhabited Atlantic side of the island in an empty shepherd’s hut—no beds, but otherwise quite comfortable. There are beautiful white beaches round that side, and if you do about an hour’s climb into the hills you come to lochs which are full of trout but never fished because too ungetatable. This last week of course we’ve all been breaking our backs helping to get the hay in, including Richard, who likes to roll about in the hay stark naked. If you want to come here any time, of course do, only just give me a week’s notice because of meeting. After September the weather gets pretty wild, though I know there are very warm days even in mid winter.

  I got two copies of the FDC1 bulletin. I am not too happy about following up the Nunn May case, ie, building him up as a well-meaning man who has been victimised. I think the Home Secretary can make hay of this claim if he wants to. I signed the first petition, not without misgivings, simply because I thought 10 years too stiff a sentence (assuming that any prison sentence is ever justified.) If I had had to argue the case, I should have pointed out that if he had communicated the information to the USA he would probably have got off with 2 years at most. But the fact is that he was an ordinary spy—I don’t mean that he was doing it for money—and went out to Canada as part of a spy ring. I suppose you read the Blue Book2 on the subject. It also seems to me a weak argument to say that he felt information was being withheld from an ally, because in his position he must have known that the Russians never communicated military information to anybody. However, in so far as the object is simply to get him out of jail somewhat earlier, I am not against it.

  Yours

  George

  [XIX, 3256, pp. 188–9; typewritten]

  1.This was Freedom Defence Committee Bulletin, 5, July–August 1947. This issue outlines action taken to have Nunn May’s sentence reduced, achieving, if possible, ‘early release’. Dr Allan Nunn May (1911–2003) was found guilty of spying on behalf of the Soviets. Conor Cruise O’Brien defended him in the Daily Telegraph, 10 February 2003, as someone who thought it was his ‘moral duty’ to help the Soviet Union. He told O’Brien that on his release his communist colleagues cut him dead because he had pleaded guilty. He should, he said, ‘have pleaded not guilty, thereby enabling the Soviet Union to accuse the British Government of having framed’ him – it was, said Nunn May, ‘an instructive experience’.

  2.Issued by the Canadian government (see Orwell’s letter to Dwight Macdonald, 15.4.47, n. 12).

  To Brenda Salkeld*

  1 September 1947

  Barnhill

  Isle of Jura

  Dearest Brenda,

  At last I get round to answering your letter. We have had unheard-of weather here for the last six weeks, one blazing day after another, and in fact at present we’re suffering from a severe drought, which is not a usual complaint in these parts. There has been no water in the taps for nearly a fortnight, and everyone has had to stagger to and fro with buckets from a well about 200 yards away. However there have been plenty of people to do it as the house was very full with people staying. We made several expeditions round to Glengarrisdale and slept a couple of nights in the shepherd’s cottage—no beds, only blankets and piles of bracken, but otherwise quite comfortable. Unfortunately on the last expedition we had a bad boat accident on the way back and 4 of us including Richard were nearly drowned. We got into the [Corryvreckan] whirlpool, owing to trying to go through the gulf at the wrong state of the tide, and the outboard motor was sucked off the boat. We managed to get out of it with the oars and then got to one of the little islands, just rocks covered with sea birds, which are dotted about there. The sea was pretty bad and the boat turned over as we were getting ashore, so that we lost everything we had including the oars and including 12 blankets. We might normally have expected to be there till next day, but luckily a boat came past some hours later and took us off. Luckily, also, it was a hot day and we managed to get a fire going and dry our clothes. Richard loved every moment of it except when he went into the water. The boat which picked us up put us off at the bay we used to call the W bay,1 and then we had to walk home over the hill, barefooted because most of our boots had gone with the other wreckage.2 Our boat luckily wasn’t damaged apart from the loss of the engine, but I’m trying to get hold of a bigger one as these trips are really a bit too unsafe in a little rowing boat. I went fishing in the lochs near Glengarrisdale both times (I’ve got to continue in pen because the wire of the typewriter has slipped) & caught quite a lot of trout. Several of these lochs are full of trout but never fished because however you approach them it’s a day’s expedition to get there.

  We’re going to spend the winter up here, but I shall be in London roughly for November—I haven’t fixed a date because it partly depends on when I finish the rough draft of my novel. I’ll let you know later just when I am coming up.3

  Love

  Eric

  [XIX, 3262, pp. 195–6; typed and hadwritten]

  1.Presumably the adjacent bays of Glentrosdale and Gleann nam Muc at the northwestern tip of Jura which, on a map, with a headland separating the bays, looks like the letter W. Eilean Mór lies opposite the centre point of the ‘W’.

  2.This would involve a walk of at least three miles over rough country.

  3.Orwell was to lecture at the Working Men’s College, Crowndale Road, London, NW1, on 12 November 1947. However, he was too ill to leave Jura and so could not give his lecture.

  To Arthur Koestler*

  20 September 1947

  Barnhill

  Isle of Jura

  Dear Arthur,

  I think a Ukrainian refugee named Ihor Sevcenko° may have written to you—he told me that he had written and that you had not yet answered.

  What he wanted to know was whether they could translate some of your stuff into Ukrainian, without payment of course, for distribution among the Ukrainian D.Ps, who now seem to have printing outfits of their own going in the American Zone and in Belgium. I told him I thought you would be delighted to have your stuff disseminated among Soviet citizens and would not press fo
r payment, which in any case these people could not make. They made a Ukrainian translation of Animal Farm which appeared recently, reasonably well printed and got up, and, so far as I could judge by my correspondence with Sevcenko°, well translated. I have just heard from them that the American authorities in Munich have siezed° 1500 copies of it and handed them over to the Soviet repatriation people, but it appears about 2000 copies got distributed among the D.Ps first. If you decide to let them have some of your stuff, I think it is well to treat it as a matter of confidence and not tell too many people this end, as the whole thing is more or less illicit. Sevcenko °asked me simultaneously whether he thought Laski 1 would agree to let them have some of his stuff (they are apparently trying to get hold of representative samples of Western thought.) I told him to have nothing to do with Laski and by no means let a person of that type know that illicit printing in Soviet languages is going on in the allied zones, but I told him you were a person to be trusted. I am sure we ought to help these people all we can, and I have been saying ever since 1945 that the DPs were a godsent opportunity for breaking down the wall between Russia and the west. If our government won’t see this, one must do what one can privately.

  [Final paragraph omitted: will visit London but stay at Barnhill for winter.]

  Yours

  George

  [XIX, 3275, pp. 206–7; typewritten]

  1.Harold J. Laski (1893–1950), political theorist, Marxist, author, and journalist, was connected with the London School of Economics from 1920 and Professor of Political Science in the University of London from 1926, member of the Fabian Executive, 1922 and 1936, member of the Executive Committee of the Labour Party, 1936–49. Although critical of Laski, Orwell had appealed for support for him after Laski lost an action for libel; see ‘As I Please’, 67, 27 December 1946, (XVIII, 3140, p. 523).

  To David Astor*

  29 September 1947

  Barnhill

  Isle of Jura

  Dear David,

  I wonder how things are going with you and the family. I am going to be in London for November to see to some odds and ends of business, but after that we intend spending the winter here. I think it will be easier to keep warm here, as we are better off for coal etc., also I am struggling with this novel and can work more quietly here. I hope to finish it some time in the spring. I have got on fairly well but not so fast as I could have wished because I have been in wretched health a lot of the year, starting with last winter. We have got the house a lot more in order and some more garden broken in, and I am going to send up some more furniture this winter. I think the Barnhill croft is going to be farmed after all, which eases my conscience about living here. A chap I don’t think you have met named Bill Dunn,1 who lost a foot in the war, has been living with the Darrochs all the summer as a pupil, and in the spring he is going to take over the Barnhill croft and live with us. Apart from the land getting cultivated again, it is very convenient for us because we can then share implements such as a small tractor which it [is] not worth getting for the garden alone, and also have various animals which I have hitherto hesitated to get for fear a moment should come when nobody was here. We have had a marvellous summer here, in fact there was a severe drought and no bath water for ten days. Four of us including Richard were nearly drowned in Corrievrechan,° an event which got into the newspapers even as far away as Glasgow. Richard is getting enormous and unbelievably destructive, and is now talking a good deal more. I expect your baby will have grown out of recognition by this time. I don’t know if you’re going to be up here any time in the winter but if so do look in here. There’s always a bed and food of sorts, and the road is I think slightly better as it’s being drained in places. Your friend Donovan came over riding on Bob and bearing incredible quantities of food, evidently sure he would find us starving. Actually we do very well for food here except bread, because we buy huge hunks of venison off the Fletchers whenever they break up a deer, also lobsters, and we have a few hens and can get plenty of milk.

  Please remember me to your wife.

  Yours

  George

  P.S. Do you want Bob wintered again by any chance? I got hay for him last year and he seemed to me in pretty good condition when I took him back, though I’m no judge. Till the day I took him back I had never mounted him, because the Darrochs had built up a picture of him as a sort of raging unicorn, and I was in such poor health I felt I was getting past that sort of thing. Actually he was as good as gold even when ridden bareback.

  [XIX, 3277, p. 209–10; typewritten]

  1.Bill Dunn (1921–92), had been an officer in the army but after the loss of a leg had been invalided out. He came to Jura in 1947 and later entered into a partnership with Sir Richard Rees to farm Barnhill. He married Avril, Orwell’s sister, in 1951. See Orwell Remembered, pp. 231–5, and Remembering Orwell, pp. 182–5. Richard Blair has contributed a very interesting memoir about Avril and Bill Dunn to the Eric & Us website (www.finlay-publisher.com).

  To Roger Senhouse*

  22 October 1947

  Barnhill

  Isle of Jura

  Dear Roger,

  I’m returning the proofs of Coming Up for Air.

  There are not many corrections. In just one or two cases I’ve altered something that had been correctly transcribed, including one or two misprints that existed in the original text. I note that on p. 46 the compositor has twice altered ‘Boars’ to ‘Boers,’ evidently taking it for a misprint. ‘Boars’ was intentional, however (a lot of people used to pronounce it like that.)

  What about dates? On the title page it says ‘1947,’ but it isn’t going to be published in 1947. And should there not somewhere be a mention of the fact that the book was first published in 1939?

  Did you know by the way that this book hasn’t got a semicolon in it? I had decided about that time that the semicolon is an unnecessary stop and that I would write my next book without one.1

  I’m coming up to London on November 7th and shall be there for about a month. I have various time-wasting things to do, lectures and so on. I hope before I arrive to have finished the rough draft of my novel, which I’m on the last lap of now. But its° a most dreadful mess and about two-thirds of it will have to be rewritten entirely besides the usual touching up. I don’t know how long that will take—I hope only 4 or 5 months but it might well be longer. I’ve been in such wretched health all this year that I never seem to have much spare energy. I wonder if Fred will be back by November.2 I hope to see you both then.

  Yours

  George

  [XIX, 3290, pp. 216–17; typewritten]

  1.See Textual Note to Coming Up for Air, VII, pp. 249–50. Despite Orwell’s clearly expressed wishes, the proofs and Uniform Edition include three semi-colons. Whether Orwell missed these (and they do make for easier reading than do the commas he wished to have used) or whether his instructions were ignored is not known.

  2.Warburg had gone on his first of a dozen visits to the United States. Orwell had written to him on 1 September 1947 asking him, if he had time, to buy him a pair of shoes.

  To Anthony Powell*

  29 November 1947

  Barnhill

  Isle of Jura

  Dear Tony,

  Thanks so much for your letter. I’m still on my back, but I think really getting better after many relapses. I’d probably be all right by this time if I could have got to my usual chest specialist, but I dare not make the journey to the mainland while I have a temperature. It’s really a foul journey in winter even if one flies part of the way. However I’ve arranged for a man to come from Glasgow & give me the once-over, & then maybe I’ll get up to London later, or perhaps only as far as Glasgow. I think I’ll have to go into hospital for a bit, because apart from treatment there’s the X-raying etc., & after that I might have a stab at going abroad for a couple of months if I can get a newspaper assignment to somewhere warm. Of course I’ve done no work for weeks—have only done the rough draft of my novel,
which I always consider as the halfway mark. I was supposed to finish it by May—now, God knows when. I’m glad the Aubrey book 1 is coming along at last. I think in these days besides putting the date of publication in books one also ought to put the date of writing. In the spring I’m reprinting a novel which came out in 1939 & was rather killed by the war, so that makes up a little for being late with my new one.

  Apparently Mrs Christen has just sailed. What I partly wrote about was this: have you got, or do you know anyone who has got, a saddle for sale? Good condition doesn’t matter very much so long as it has a sound girth & stirrups. It’s for a horse only about 14 h[ands] but on the stout side, so very likely a saddle belonging to a big horse would do. It’s the sort of thing someone might have kicking round, & you can’t buy them for love or money. The farm pony we have here is ridden for certain errands to save petrol, & it’s so tiring riding bareback. I am ready to pay a reasonable price.

  Richard is offensively well & full of violence. He went through whooping cough without noticing that he had it. My love to everyone. I hope to see you all some day.

  Yours

  George

  [XIX, 3308, pp. 227–8; handwritten]

  1.Powell published John Aubrey and His Friends in 1948, and Brief Lives and Other Selected Writings of John Aubrey in 1949.

  To Leonard Moore*

  7 December 1947

  Barnhill

  Isle of Jura

  Dear Moore,

  Thanks for your letter of the 1st. I have of course no objection to the arrangement with the F[oreign] O[ffice] about A.F. 1 I had already written to the U.S. Information Service to tell them they could broadcast it free of charge.

  I have seen a chest specialist, &, as I feared, I am seriously ill. As soon as there is a bed vacant, I think in about 10 days, I shall have to go into a sanatorium—for how long I don’t know of course, but I gather probably something like 4 months. It’s T.B., as I suspected. They think they can cure it all right, but I am bound to be hors de combat for a good while. Could you inform all the publishers etc. concerned. Could you also thank very kindly Harcourt Brace for getting & sending me a pair of shoes (just arrived) & find out from Fred Warburg who paid for them, ie. whom I should repay. I believe Warburg paid.