This catalogue of woes is a poor return for a letter which was the bright spot in my week. You have certainly understood the motif. Even Caveda was meant to be a kind of third part of a more than Siamese twin.
My wife sends her regards.
Yours very sincerely,
Graham Greene
TO LADY OTTOLINE MORRELL
Little Orchard | Campden | Glos. | December 17 [1931]
Dear Lady Ottoline,
It was very nice of you to write & I found your letter very encouraging. The wave of depression at the book’s failure has passed, now that the next one is forming in the mind. ‘Rochester’ I have just got packed off to Kenneth Bell,22 of Balliol, to be vetted for historical blunders, & I believe it’s coming out in April. It’s not the book it ought to have been, as I was writing against time. It will be amusing to be reviewed by a new set of people for a change! I wish I could have been in town to-day. I miss Thursday teas!
Thank you very much again for writing.
Yours very sincerely,
Graham Greene
As it turned out, he was not ‘writing against time’. Rejected by Heinemann owing to its sexual content, Lord Rochester’s Monkey was not published until September 1974.
TO R. N. GREEN-ARMYTAGE
‘The reviewing of novels at the beginning of the thirties was at a far lower critical level than it has ever been since. Gerald Gould, a bad poet, and Ralph Strauss, a bad novelist, divided the Sunday forum between them. One was not elated by their praise nor cast down by their criticism …’23 The last sentence need not be believed, as Greene certainly resented Gould’s mixed review of Rumour at Nightfall (Observer, 13 December 1931). Writing to Vivien’s maternal uncle, a lawyer and sometime poet in Bath, he takes a run at Gould for his praise of Guenther Birkenfeld’s A Room in Berlin, and at a more substantial target, the diplomat, biographer and diarist Harold Nicolson (1886–1968), who had raved over Lady Eleanor Smith’s now-forgotten Flamenco, a novel about gypsies.
As from Little Orchard | Campden| Glos. |
December 26 [1931?]
Dear Uncle Bob,
A thousand thanks for my share in your exquisite present. The second poem I already knew & admired: indeed I had a cutting from the Westminster ragged & worn in my copy of The Veil.24 To have it in beautiful print is a delight.
I’m in the last desperate throes of the final revision of a life of Rochester which is to come out in the spring: on January 1, I have to begin another novel for the autumn. The life of a novelist, alas, is not all beans & bacon. Apropos of which my Ballade against Certain Reviewers.
‘Ugly but beautiful,’ the critic said,*
‘A masterpiece of incest, poverty,
Life in a German slum,’ but then I read
The agonising scene in chapter three
When ‘little Anna’ leaves her family
To go with baby out into the rain,
And sin so nobly & incessantly:
I have mistaken Gould for gold again.
True, Mr. Nicolson must earn his bread,
And Lady Eleanor may know a gypsy,
But can’t he go & boil his head
Rather than call her Borrow25 in epitome?x
‘Another Fielding, Smollett, Dostoievski’ –
They never tire of taking names in vain,
Describing Herr von X; I read so hopefully –
I have mistaken Gould for gold again.
Are critics, when they go upstairs to bed,
Ever affrighted by the fantasy,
At a dark corner, of the mighty dead,
Whose names they’ve dealt in so dishonourably?
No, if a hand stretch out, more probably
It’s that of Mr Ernest Potts,26 whose ‘Drain,’
‘Ugly & beautiful’ was lent to me:
I have mistaken Gould for gold again.
Prince of the Pen, your masterpiece I flie,
Hearing the unbalanced praises of some men,
Who laud C’s plot & W’s poetry.
I have mistaken Gould for gold again.
*A favourite expression of Mr G… ld G… ld, who used it in particular in describing A Room in Berlin.
x of ‘Flamenco’ Mr H… ld N… n said ‘It is impossible to get more out of a novel than out of this.’
Ever yours,
Graham
TO HUGH GREENE
Little Orchard, | Campden, | Glos. [20 July 1932]
Dear Hugh,
We should love to have you, but
Frankly! –
we are on the verge of bankruptcy, & we had someone to stay last week, whom we didn’t want to see nearly so much as you, & we can’t afford to put you up for four nights; we have been trying since we lost £250 a year to make p.g.s27 the rule at 2/6 a night, but it’s difficult. But do come for two nights, if you can manage to stay a day longer at Crowborough & go to R.28 a day earlier. One can manage two nights without increasing housekeeping.
Love
G.
TO HUGH GREENE
[7 November 1932]
Dear Hugh,
Many thanks for your letter. We were given an unexpected lift into Oxford last Friday, but found you were away. We tried to go to Wedding Rehearsal29 but times were wrong & we had to go to Love on Wheels30 – which was just seeable in spite of Hulbert & the caricature of Clair.31
Do come over some time.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Universal, & R.K.O. all seem biting at Stamboul Train.
We are dreaming of a flat in Oxford if we get rich. We looked at one the other day in Broad St., but it was too large.
Love
G.
TO HUGH GREENE
Little Orchard, | Campden, | Glos. | Nov. 30 [1932]
Dear Hugh,
Stamboul Train is not appearing till the 8th. On Monday Priestley appeared at Heinemann’s and said that if it was published as it stood he would bring an action for libel. He remained adamant and I had a frantic day on the phone arranging for alterations. 13,000 copies were all printed and bound and they all have to be unstitched and some pages printed over again.
Yours in exhaustion,
Graham.
J. B. Priestley (1894–1984) spotted a portrait of himself in the character of Quin Savory, a popular novelist. Greene was forced to rewrite offending passages at the last minute, dictating revisions in a phone booth.32 He came to admire Priestley for his wartime broadcasts but never for his books.
TO DENYSE CLAIROUIN
Little Orchard, | Campden, | Glos. | January 27 [1933]
Dear Denyse Clairouin,
But I should be terribly pleased if you translated ‘The End of the Party’. I send it in its most portable form. Don’t trouble to return this copy.
Yes, ‘S.T.’33 has done well. A week ago it had turned 15,000. It’s all rather dull because it all goes to pay the yawning deficit of Heinemann on the last book. So I have no hope of a holiday in Burgundy this year.
I do hope you are successful with S.T. But how I wish it was Rumour at Nightfall, which obstinately in spite of publishers & public I so much prefer. You heard I expect how J. B. Priestley sabotaged S.T. at the last moment with a threatened libel action, costing Heinemann £400!
Yours sincerely,
Graham Greene
TO MARIE ADELAIDE BELLOC LOWNDES
Best known for her crime novels, Marie Lowndes (1868–1947) was the sister of Hilaire Belloc. Her husband, Frederick Lowndes, was a staff writer on The Times, where Graham had met him.
Little Orchard, | Campden, | Glos. | April 4 [1933]
Dear Mrs. Belloc Lowndes,
So many thanks for your letter. I’m glad you liked Stamboul Train: I’ve never been more uncertain of a book. It was nice of you to send me the cutting which I had not seen. The book seems to be doing as well in America as one can expect: it came out the very week when the banks were closed.
We’ve been down here in the country for the last two years & are now struggling to f
ind a flat in Oxford for a year. Do come & see us if you are ever near. Everybody seems to turn up in the Cotswolds at least once a year. Do please remember me to your husband.
Yours very sincerely,
Graham Greene
TO R. N. GREEN-ARMYTAGE
During a holiday in Wales, Vivien learned of the death of her very forceful mother, Muriel Dayrell-Browning, who had suffered an embolism following a broken leg.34
at Sea beach, | Horton, | Pontcynon, | Swansea, |
May 23 [1933]
Dear Uncle Bob,
I’m so sorry about this. It came as a terrible shock. Unfortunately we left Campden early yesterday morning before your first wire, & both wires were delivered together to us here just after tea.
Vivienne, actually, was terribly upset, & the worst of it is that she’s going to have a baby. She was bent on going up to town for the funeral; I was a little worried – three journeys of over five hours each within about four days, so I telephoned through last night to Uncle Vivian & explained matters.35 He said that she should certainly not come up; it was useless to try & persuade her last night, so I waited till this morning, when I got a local doctor to see her & advise her. He said if she did travel up, she would probably feel too sick to attend the funeral. That & Uncle Vivian’s advice have persuaded her.
I do hope you feel I’ve not done wrong over this. If we had been at Campden it would have been very different; I didn’t like to bring pressure on her, for the reason that her mother & I did not care for each other & it looked as if I was carrying the feud on after her death; so I left it to the doctors. But if I had always been as fond of her mother as you all are I should have felt exactly the same. I shall come up as Vivien’s representative by a train on Thursday morning & will go straight to Golders Green. I’ll be catching an evening train home, as I don’t want to leave her alone for the night. I expect I shall see you at Golders Green.
With all my sympathy,
yours affectionately,
Graham Greene
TO MARIE BELLOC LOWNDES
Little Orchard, | Campden, | Glos. | June 17 [1933]
Dear Mrs Belloc Lowndes,
How nice it is of you to remember us. I should be delighted to come to your party on Thursday. Alas! as we are moving to a flat in Oxford the next day, my wife has to be in Oxford laying the ground for our furniture. You may be amused to hear, too, that we are going to have a child in December, so she cannot leap from one spot to another with any celerity. May I enlist your kind heart in the cause of this book, Love on the Dole? I had it for review the other day36 & was so deeply impressed by it that I wrote to the author, a thing I have never done before. He is a man of 29, who has had a terrible life on the dole & off it in Salford, & now works at 30/-a week. But the book is brilliant. Do read it & encourage others to read it. Yours very sincerely, Graham Greene
TO VIVIEN GREENE
Graham was planning a new novel, later entitled England Made Me, based on the story of Ivar Kreuger, a Swedish tycoon whose vast wealth was founded on the production of matches. He shot himself just as he was about to be revealed as a swindler. With Hugh, Graham took a trip that included Oslo, Gothenburg, Stockholm and Copenhagen. They returned on 7 September.
Strand Hotel | Göteborg | August 18 [1933] | 8.20 a.m.
Darling love, I’m almost glad you couldn’t come. Such a crossing. Not very rough, but a soft slow regular undulation for 30 hours on end which seemed much worse than the Channel. Though quite all right as long as one lay down. Yesterday by the time I’d dressed & shaved, I had to go back to bed; Hugh didn’t get up till the evening. Driven by the sporting spirit of the Wufflies I got up & had lunch (so as not to lose a bet), but then retired again till after tea. No supper. But by the evening I was getting used to it.
As for the ‘jolly girls’ – Ursula, the younger, very healthy & managing & girl-guidish … she was on the look-out for us at the barrier at Victoria & pounced; there was no avoiding them. The elder sister is quite tolerable but with a bad skin. They’ve just departed with their mother in a car;37 O darling such a lovely railway station where we took their luggage; beautiful plain modern brick with lovely proportions, & behind every buffer on every platform a little flower garden.
Hugh & I went & saw Mae West in She Done Him Wrong – an absolutely perfect film. The nineteeish atmosphere beautifully caught; showing up ‘[illeg]’s’ spurious literary period air. A completely original film in photography, acting, integrity: no sentiment to mar the amoral story. You must see it if you get a chance.
[…]
TO IAN PARSONS, CHATTO & WINDUS
Ian Parsons (1906–80) was a partner in the firm of Chatto & Windus and went on to become chairman of Chatto, The Bodley Head and Jonathan Cape. His offer of a job to Graham presented the novelist with a dilemma.
9 Woodstock Close, | Woodstock Rd., | Oxford. |
Oct. 11 [1933]
Dear Parsons,
Very reluctantly, because I’ve always wanted to be in a publishing office, I must lose the chance. If I had been living in London, I could have gone gently on with my own work of an evening, but as it is my evening would be spent in getting home. I have still half a year’s lease to run here, and as my wife is having a baby in December, I feel rather tied. It was very nice indeed of you to give me the chance which if I’d been in London I should have leapt at.
You spoke of an apprentice job being the one really vacant. I don’t know if it would be any good putting in a word for a brother of mine who has just gone down from Oxford and is anxious to get into a publisher’s? He was at a German university for a time and speaks German well. At Oxford he took a second in Honour Mods. and just missed a first in English. Edmund Blunden was his tutor and speaks highly of his work. His name is Hugh Greene, and his home is Incents, Crowborough, Sussex. But I daresay you’ve got dozens of apprentices to choose from.
Yours ever,
Graham Greene
The beginning of 1933 had seen Graham with a bestseller in Stamboul Train, but he was still deeply in debt to Heinemann, so his decision to earn his living solely as a writer was a risky one. He was, however, able to rely on a modest income as a reviewer for the Spectator, of which he became literary editor at the beginning of the war.
TO HUGH GREENE
9 Woodstock Close, | Woodstock Rd., | Oxford. |
Feb. 28 [1934]
Dear Hugh,
Many thanks for your letter and thousands of congratulations on your job.38 I wonder what salary you are getting. Nine guineas a week? I’ve heard nothing more from Cameron, and I didn’t have a chance to pump him at dinner, but I imagine that now you will have small interest in the F.I.39 How beautifully dramatic that you should have got so good a job a few days before your time ran out.
If I see Peter Fleming40 I’ll show him the photo!
I’ve just been in bed with a bad cold and am overwhelmed with acres of work. I seem to have gatecrashed into the highbrow citadels with the new book, and have got the new Eliot to write an article on for Life and Letters. 41 Cape are publishing The Old School in the summer, paying me an editorial fee of £30.42
Paris was extraordinarily interesting, though I failed to see a riot. I have now become passionately addicted to flying. I have never enjoyed a breakfast more than the one I had over the Channel. I got a 25% reduction from Imperial Airways which made the price about 5/-more expensive than 2nd class Dover–Calais.
I rejoice over the news about D.
In haste,
Graham
[Note on the envelope: ‘Father Bede is critically ill, so I can do nothing about intros yet.’]43
TO VIVIEN GREENE
9 Woodstock Close : Woodstock Road : Oxford |
Tuesday [early 1934]
Darling best dearest most adored Puss Willow. I do hope you are having a nice time & seeing plenty of people & things. Your Wuffle misses you.
I did arrears of letters this morning & this afternoon went to the bumper [?] programme:
it was lovely, especially Birds in Spring which I hadn’t seen, & The Three Little Pigs. (Did I tell you that with Anna Sten there was a Silly Symphony called The China Shop with the most lovely colouring I’ve yet seen). Whither Germany was quite good, & The Mayor of Hell very seeable. A small boy beside me burst into loud sobs when a boy dies in a Reformatory.44 When I got back, I played the gramophone, did my minimum, & read this long (& rather dull) Graves novel, which has suddenly descended on me at the last minute.45
I’m so disappointed about tomorrow, but as Mary46 is playing hostess & hasn’t told me where or when we are to have lunch, it’s useless trying to fix a meeting. I’d so much rather have lunch with you. If by any chance you found yourself by the entrance to the Café Royal between 12.15 & 12.30, we might snatch a cocktail together. I’ll be there on the chance, but don’t put yourself out at all if you aren’t in the neighbourhood.
Dear love, I so love & adore you. I’m going down on the chance of finding R. & E. in.47
All my love,
Tyg.
P.S. Dr S.’s Bill has come in. He’s only charged 17.6.6. Isn’t that a lovely surprise?!48
TO DENYSE CLAIROUIN
The Stavisky affair nearly brought down France’s Third Republic. A swindler named Sacha Stavisky had been found dead in Chamonix and it was not clear whether he had killed himself or been murdered by the police.
The Right claimed that he had been killed to hide corruption in the Socialist government. On 6 February 1934, one hundred thousand royalist and fascist demonstrators fought a pitched battle with police at Place de la Concorde. Graham flew to Paris to report on the General Strike called for Monday, 12 February. He and Clairouin drove about Paris looking for signs of trouble; in the end, he wrote his article for the Spectator (16 February 1934; Reflections 30 –3) without seeing blood.
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