THE NATIONAL MAGAZINE CO., LTD.

NASH'S-PALL MALL MAGAZINE
GOOD HOUSEKEEPING
HARPER'S BAZAAR
TELEPHONE: CENTRAL 7591

153, QUEEN VICTORIA STREET,
LONDON . . . E.C.4.

25th September 1933

David Low Esq.,
3 Rodburgh Road,
London, N.W.11.

Dear Mr. Low,

I understand that you have seen Miss West, and so I
presume you will now be going ahead with the first of the
series of drawings you are doing for us.

To avoid any last minute rush, I should be very much
obliged if you could let me have it by the end of October,
or, if possible, a little earlier.

May I remind you that, as the design will be placed
across a double spread, you should compose the picture so
as to allow for the split to come more or less in the centre.

15, ORCHARD COURT,
PORTMAN SQUARE, W.1.
WELBECK 3606.

October 10th, 1933.

Dear David Low,

Thank you for your kind letter. I can't tell you how pleased I am that you said you would like to have me in on this. I am in rather a difficult situation because my husband, poor dear, is behaving like a half-wit. He has worked himself to the edge of a nervous breakdown, and now says that he can't possibly think of resting, so that the minute I can I shall leap on him and take him away for a holiday. I shall however be in one place all the time I stay at his Castle. I apologise.

November 22nd, 1933.

Dear Low,

Herewith the flute obligato.
I have not been very definite about
all the people because it seems to me
that the readers will pick it up for
themselves and have their fun. The only
thing they want is to have the story laid
out for them. All I have done is to
throw a kiss at Swaffer, perch for a
moment on Castlerosse's knee, and make
clear your point about Lady Oxford.

I am in bed with a cold, so

November 19th.1953.

Dear Rebecca West,

I am posting you today the colour 'rough' of the first RAKE drawing. The tale it tries to tell is that the so-far-unspoiled young man has been left a fortune and a title (vide newspapers, letters and telegrams on bed - DAILY BUGLE-"Fortune For Clerk-Millionaire in a Night - DAILY STAR-"Clerk Inhabits Million and Title" "Romance of Millions", etc.) The gossip writers of the popular press promptly arrive to start his undoing by making him cheaply famous.

I have conveyed to Mealand that in announcements of the series he should say that my drawings do not include actual likenesses of people, and that passing resemblances which readers may observe are为了避免 rather than of individuals. But I am afraid that Castlerosse, Donegall, Rednen Swaffer and Lady Oxford have turned out plainly recognizable in the finished drawing. In the cases of the first three I do not suppose it matters, but I think it would be as well if you could mention in the letterpress that the lady in the left-hand foreground is not a mere gossip-journalist, but a famous diarist who knew and wrote about the young man's ancestors, and in making a friendly call remembered to bring her notebook. (All characters mentioned should be given, of course, fictitious names.) The girl in green and her companion are half-likenesses of Eleanor Smith and Charles Graves. The gent-noeing under the bed could be James Douglas (poor old Jimmy!) There are two nondescript senescha-men.

The potentialities for evil in the young man's character are hinted at more plainly in the finished drawing by a vivid sports suit lurking behind the blue suit of conventional respectability inside the wardrobe, by a suggestion of 'hot' shirts in the wardrobe drawer, and by copies of "DOGS-RACING" and "THE FILM FAN" with solid books on the bedside cupboard. Otherwise the interior is just dingy boarding-house.

Further information will be supplied on request, as land-and-estate agents say. Autobahn-tours@belgium.will want to know any more than this.

My kind regards

December 17th.1955.

Dear Rebecca West,

I am sending the next Rake drawing "THE RAKE
THROWS A COCK-TAIL PARTY" to England tomorrow, and I shall tell
him to pass it to you for a look. (I hope it will not spoil your
Christmas appetite). I have no comments of importance to make.
It is obvious that Our Hero has now become rather a swell. An
expert from Hecla' has fixed him up with the right carpet, a
Picasso and an Epstein. This cocktail-party includes the usual
crowd of mixed undesireables. Actors, a few of the Smarter
Young Set, a couple of statesmen, a sporting cartoonist, a "well-
known sportsman", one of two rising politicians, a brace of peots,
a swafes beauty and her consort, cinema stars, classie boys,
an artist and so on. Identification is not particularly necessary-
or easy, because some of them are half- or even quarter-likenesses,
and others are composites of five or six.

Now that I have a proof of the first drawing
I contemplate sending particulars along to an agent, view to
arranging book publication. Have your consent to include
your name, and have you any suggestions? I fear that there will
not be much money in book publication, because it would be a
very expensive thing to produce, and could not have a popular sale.
But I think we might see what offers and then consider. What
is your view?

Best wishes for Christmas and New Year.

Yours sincerely,

December 23rd, 1933.

Dear Rebecca Beat,

Editor Westland thinks that a fuller description of the second FAKE drawing than I have already given you might be necessary, since it appears that you will see only a rough reproduction which may not be clear enough for you to pick out the types.

Here, then, is a list of the kind of people I had in mind when I started-to read the小说 to right in the picture:

In background, lady pinching his ear, Jim de
Rothschild. Two ladies sitting down, the green one a young
version of Lady Lavery. Two young men drinking, Bob Bootny,
Pandolfo Churchill and another. Tom Webster supporting J.H.
Thomas refusing cherry from nondescript flapper. Behind,
Douglas Fairbank amusing the laddie. Over his left shoulder
Sir Denton Rose. Theake, on his left Sir P. Sassoon, on his
right three anybodies, one of whom might be Beatrice Lillie.
The couple dancing are Sir Harry Preston and (only slightly)
Constance Coblier. At the piano, Noel Coward, over his
shoulder Gertrude Lawrence. Past her, just arriving, Lady
Diane Cooper and husband, standing on the piano, left side, Sir
Landon Ronald; right, Herbert Wobf, a Sitwell. In foreground,
Miss Jeanne Stourton sitting on floor with cigarette-holder. In
right-hand corner, Cecil Beaton.

They are not all likes, as I told you in
my last letter. Onlyardenotwen recognisable. But perhaps
it will help you to appreciate the mixture if I tell you I hefar
as possible what has been tossed into the stock-pot. I agree
with you that actual identification should be avoided when the
stuff appears.

I hope you are having a happy New Year in
Switzerland. A delightful place.

My best wishes to your husband and yourself

Yours sincerely,

January 21st.1954.

Dear Rebecca West,

I am about to send the third drawing to Zealand,
THE FAKE PUTS MONEY INTO THE TAREIES. Left to right: a knot of
camera-men hanging about waiting; (I observe that a type of
camera-men is evolving- a rather depressing fellow suggesting art
and secret vice. The influence of the camera must be unwholesome, I
think.) Next along, a group of producers who might be Basil Dean
Alfred Hitchcock and Anthony Asquith; (an impossible association
in real life, of course, because each one would probably object
strongly to the other two....but let that pass.) They are all
reday to produce, the only difficulty being the usual minor one that
they haven't got a story. However they have the bedrock 'set', which
in British films is always one of the battle. The next group includes
stars and 'business executives' making a fuss over theFAKE. The latter
has evidently sprung a good sum of money, because the management has
been able to indulge its timidity about local female talent and
has imported the highest-quality sex-appeal from Hollywood. Accordingly
Jack Westend and Ernst Barabang on the neck of the Fuke, who feels
that their 'glamour' is cheap at the price. Charles Laughton and
Jack Holbert are in the group, the deduction being that the production
will bellon probably, the profitable Henry Will coin with a dash of
'Jack's The Boy' interest in the part of Cranmer. I thought of men
like Ostrer and Joseph Schank when I started to draw the 'executives'
but they finished as a couple of vulgar Jews. A little apart stands
the foreign Super-producer-genius, more-or-less like Norda. He wonders
now the devil he will ever get anything done with such a crowd. In
the right-hand corner the inevitable musicians purvey inspiration.
That I think, is all.

I hope you had a good holiday and that your husband
is feeling better after his rest. (Is 'rest' the right word to use
after a ski-ing holiday?) I thought Zealand did us well in the
first instalment, and I hear friendly comments about both sections.
Newman Flower is being approached about the book, but I have not
heard anything yet. My wife and I send our kindest regards.

Tours sincerely,

March let. 1954.

Dear Rebecca West,

I have sent the 4th RAKE drawing to Zealand.
THE RAKE BACKS A 'CHAMPION'. The burden of it is fairly obvious,
I think. The RAKE has become a 'sportsman' and has been financing
another of those horizontal heavyweights of which Ol. England is so
prolific. Here he is matched with Carnera and proving to be just
ment, as usual. I wanted to flick a half-brick at the people who
talk humbug about the 'Noble Art' and the 'Science' of Boxing and
then come away disgusted with the 'poor exhibition' if the fighters
do not half-kill one another; but I am afraid that I have not made
my spectators look hard-faced and sedantic enough.

In the front row might be some of the members of
the Boxing Board of Control, Col. Wyddleton, Sir W. Bass, Lord Tweedmouth,
Tom Webster, Curtis Bennett, Harry Preston (it is one of his famous
fight parties at which everyone smokes guinea cigars and sports
uniform buttonholes. The RAKE is his protégé). Poor old Lonsdale,
and at the right end of the row a bookmaker suggestive of the boss
of Ladbroke's (the well-known bookmakers') seems to be making a bet.
beneath, a Mosley sit between a Fannie Ward and a Lucy Houston.
(Why, Heaven only knows - just a whim).

I hear from Curtis Brown that the book rights are
making heavy weather. I am notopping this article about the situation,
because I think the book would be very expensive to produce in these
days. I am letting Curtis Brown go on, but if you have any wishes
on the subject please let me know.

Please permit me to say, please, that I thought your
accompaniment to the Cocktail Party was grand, and in just the right
tone.

Yours sincerely,

August 6th. 1934.

Dear Rebecca West,

I am just sending two drawings to Nealand :-

No.9. "THE RAKE IN THE DIVORCE COURT".

No.10. "THE RAKE AT THE END OF HIS TETHER!"

I think the Rake had better be the party that gets the divorce, since, as you may, he seems to be rather a shrimp. He is puzzled because although he gets the verdict his wife gets all the sympathy. I have given him an array of counsel that could win anything. (Types of Roland Oliver, Norman Birkett and Patrick Hastings.) In the right-hand corner sit the chambermaid, the bellboy and the deskclerk of the hotel where the alleged misconduct took place, talking to a solicitor.

No.10 will need a bit of explaining. He is at his solicitors' (?) his bankers' (?) or his financial advisers' (?). The persons behind the table, who are, I hope, familiar City types with a suggestion of McKenna about the head of the firm, have been going over his 'papers' and are telling him that his assets are exhausted; whether from extravagance, fluttering in stocks and shares or the misdoings of some Hatry I leave to you. He is slightly tight.

I have the next and last two under way and I hope to send you the roughs before I go away, as I promised. They are :-

No.11. "THE RAKE IS EJECTED FROM THE 'HOTEL'" (MAGNIFICENT)

No.12. "THE RAKE AT THE END OF HIS TETHER".

They will explain themselves, perhaps. I plan to have him thrown out because a magnificent manager through the main lounge at the rush-hour, finishing with a very blue tableau showing his poor little personality drowned in a sad stream of wasted men. Tragedy, you see.

And now I am going away to swim in the Baltic.

August 23rd, 1934.

Dear Low,

I suppose you sent me the last
two drawings so that I can get on with
the job for the book, and I can do
the last one but I should like to
delay the one in the hotel until I
see the finished drawing as I cannot
get a hint of the real quality and
tone from your sketch and I might drop
bricks. That and the banker one are
holding me up. As soon as I get
these I will be able to deliver the

Dear Rebecca West,

My name is Rebecca West.
Forgive me for not being more
earlier
having acknowledged your kindness in
peturning the 'rough' of the hotel drawing.

but XX
I have been submerged finishing the dashed thing. (The last is always the worst)

neither of us were
I am sorry that XX in to receive you, but I hear that my dog did his best.

note
Today I send Mealand the last two, thank God. Kindly the gold spittoon
de luxe for Americans in the Hotel one.
I do not know what you ask about big
XX in the bar.

think

hotels, but if you feel inclined to be blasting please remember that the
manager -looking person standing in the centre might be a relative of
Sir Francis Towle, and that he might feel damaged.

It has been a pleasant job, and I hope everybody else has enjoyed the stuff - both yours and mine - as much as I have.

Yours sincerely,