Telephone • Holborn 4855/6

Telegrams • PSOPHIDIAN

MARTIN SECKER & WARBURG LTD

PUBLISHERS • 7 John Street • Bloomsbury • London • WC1

F. J. WARBURG • R. H. P. SENHOUSE

14th August, 1947.

D. Kilham Roberts, Esq.,
The Authors' Society,
84, Drayton Gardens,
London, S.W. 10.

Dear Kilham Roberts,

The new book publishers' export scheme, as you will probably realise, allows us to draw paper outside our ration for books supplied in bulk to foreign publishers, particularly U.S. publishers.

Under these circumstances we think it worth while to draw your attention to the possibility of exporting to the U.S. an edition of SOUTH WIND and, if we agree terms with you, for a reprint of OLD CALABRIA. There are, as we all know by now, copyright difficulties in connection with SOUTH WIND, but I am not certain whether OLD CALABRIA was ever copyrighted in America; I suppose not. If the matter is clear from this point of view, it will be a question of finding an American publisher for one or both of these books, and asking us to quote for the number of copies required, excluding royalty, which would be paid to you as author's agent.

I should be glad to receive your comments on this suggestion at your convenience.

Yours sincerely,

FJW/MCP

F. J. WARBURG
ROGER SENHOUSE

TEMPLE BAR 5357-8

TELEGRAMS:
PSOPHIDIAN, LONDON

MARTIN SECKER AND WARBURG LTD

22 Essex Street, London, W.C.2
Publishers

copy of letter dated November 22, 1937.

sent c/o Thomas Cook, Tornabuoni, Florence.

Dear Norman Douglas,

You will remember that you gave us full leave
to negotiate the translation into German of SOUTH WIND
We have now signed a contract with Kiepenheuer Verlag
by which they will undertake the translation and pay
an advance of £25 on signature and a further £25 on
publication on account of royalty. So far no means
has been devised as to how this money would reach us
from Germany and we may end by having to take it in
kind possibly through some German bookseller in London.
One point which we did not settle is the exact basis
between you and this firm, for according to your original
contract you hold full rights in SOUTH WIND and so it
remains for you to set the percentage you will grant us
for negotiating this sale for you. We suggest 25% as
there seem so many troubles ahead and the book has lain
idle so far as Germany is concerned for over 15 years.
I hope you will be able to agree to these terms. We
will forward you a copy of the contract as soon as I know
for certain where you are.

There is another point which Kiepenheuer have
raised and that is that Frau Emmy Seidel, Munich, Wilhelm-
strasse 1, has claimed to have the rights in the German
translation. However, it appears from their correspondence
that she is not very serious in pressing her claims.
Should she raise her voice again, no doubt, you will inform
Kiepenheuer that Frau Seidel's rights have lapsed and that
you have vested all rights to us.

I hope this reaches you in good time for I very
much want to know whether you are back in Italy again.

With all best wishes.

Yours sincerely,

F. J. WARBURG
R. H. P. SENHOUSE

MARTIN SECKER & WARBURG LTD

Phone: Holborn 4855/6

Telegrams: Psophidian

PUBLISHERS: 7 JOHN STREET · BLOOMSBURY · LONDON · WCI

31st December, 1945.

Norman Douglas, Esq.,
46, Thurloe Square,
London, S.W.7.

My dear Norman,

Very best wishes for 1946, and I am sorry that I was unable to send you a Christmas card. There weren't any. Although some people have a habit of keeping good ones from past years - I do myself - I could not face mutilating them and sending them out again, as has been done by some of my friends this year.

I never thanked you for the tedious work of reading through the proofs of the new setting of SOUTH WIND. It has gone back to the printers for a revise. This is just as well, Since I finished my own proof-reading this week-end, I realise how long it must have taken you to complete your reading, for I was not working with the old text in front of me. It is quite extraordinary how old mistakes have persisted. Punctuation is understandable, but so many hyphens originally splitting a word at the end of a line, now have the effrontery to stare attention from the middle of a page, and having once discovered the cause of this, I began myself to use the two earlier texts to finish off the book. The result is that I have another 23 literal mistakes to record, and one or two queries on which I want your opinion, and should like it before we get back the second batch of proofs. Could you lunch on Friday

OVER:

MARTIN SECKER & WARBURG LTD

PUBLISHERS : 7 JOHN STREET · BLOOMSBURY · LONDON · WCI

Phone : Holborn 485

Telegrams : Psophidian

20th June, 1946.

My dear Norman,

I am so glad for your sake that your plans are definite
at last and that you can leave this country on Friday. I had
hoped to come down to see you last Sunday, when Eddie and
Bryan told me that they were having tea with Viva. I could
not manage this, however, and was feeling rather rotten and
so you will leave without our meeting again. Boy Voyage!

Of those great, thick proofs of SOUTH WIND we only had
two copies and so the next chance you have of seeing the book
will be fully bound, I believe, for when we see the proofs of
the new Introduction we will not get the text of the book as
well. We have to trust the printers to put in those last few
corrections, for now-a-days labour will not permit of these
extra proof copies. I am so sorry that you leave without
the copy you asked for.

I hear that you plan to go down to Sorrento for two
months or so, and there make up your mind about where to live.
I hope you find pleasant conditions and sufficient food, and
not too many ghosts.

Yours as ever,

RHPS/MS

MARTIN SECKER & WARBURG LTD

PUBLISHERS: 7 JOHN STREET • BLOOMSBURY • WCI

AIR MAIL

10th March, 1948.

Norman Douglas, E.s.o.,
Pension Bel Soggiorno,
Isola Capri,
Prov. Napoli,
ITALY.

My dear Norman,

Thank you so much for your letter of the 29th January and the beautiful new photograph of the Blue Grotto - that is a real joy of memory and I can only wish that it had been in full colour!

Willie will have kept you informed as to what has been going on, and he has now sent me a finally corrected copy of OLD CALABRIA, so that we shall have no excuse for any verbal insufficiency in the future.

Meanwhile, in come the advance copies of the Penguin SIREN LAND, four for you (which are going to you under separate cover) and one for Alan Lane, which he would like you to sign for him and send back. The covering letter says that Mr. Lane will be very grateful if you will autograph a copy for his special collection of Penguin First Editions, so I hope you will comply and please that playboy of the Western World.

How are things with you? I met last night a strange young lady, Penelope (double-barrelled), who was Diana Cooper's secretary in Paris and who now appears to be a lady of fortune-whether good or bad I could not determine! Nor did I ask her where she had been staying in Capri, but she told me quite enough to make me long to go there early this summer. It was very good of you to suggest the proper time of year to choose, but it will another fortnight or so before my plans are made, and I would certainly like them to include Italy this year. We have just arrived Alberto Moravia and his wife, together with Montale, the poet, who are already in a whirlwind of lectures, parties and recitations (or whatever their reading from their works may be called, for I do not intend to go and hear them). I have enjoyed meeting him but do not yet know much about his character. His books which we have so far published have done quite well, but

/chary

MARTIN SECKER & WARBURG LTD

Phone: Holborn 4855/6

Telegrams: Psophidian

- 2 -

Norman Douglas, Esq., (Cont'd). 10th March, 1948.

chary about the reception of LA ROMANA (translation at present in hand). He will be here for about three weeks and tells me that he finds it easier to work in Capri than anywhere else. As he seems to write three books a year I am wondering what exactly is the stimulus - I must come and find out, and will write to you again soon. Raymond has just gone off to stay with Nancy in Paris, on his way through Cap Ferrat to stay with B.B. in Florence. He certainly has chosen the right moment of the year.

Yours ever,

Enclos: 1 SIREN LAND

RHPS/MS

Telephone Holborn 4855/6

Telegrams · PSOPHIDIAN

MARTIN SECKER & WARBURG LTD

PUBLISHERS · 7 John Street · Bloomsbury · London · WC1

F. J. WARBURG · R. H. P. SENHOUSE

B.D. FARRER · J.G. PATTISSON

Norman Douglas, Esq.,
Villa Oliviella,
Isola Capri,
Prov. Napoli,
ITALY.

8th July, 1949.

My dear Norman,

Over the last two months I have been worrying about going
to Italy. Worrying because this is the second year that I had
hoped to fit in a visit to Capri - indeed, went so far as to be
more certain of my visit to David Jefferys just before he went
back to Naples.

Various turns of events kept me wondering, even after we
had decided between the four directors of this firm that this year
it would be David Farrer, our new director, who would be going to
Milan, Rome and Naples, and that I would take his projected tour
to Scandinavia. We have important and increasing business to
attend to in Stockholm, not to mention those charming Danes who
still persist in producing no second Hans Andersen. Who knows
but that there lurks someone equally good, if only we could find
someone to understand their language.

So I am off, on the 12th, to Copenhagen and will be at the
Hotel Reisen, in Stockholm, from the 20th to the 30th July. I
should love to have a letter from you there because perhaps you
can tell me a few things to do in Stockholm, of which I am all
but blissfully ignorant.

This is sad news since I really had set my heart on coming
down to see you, and all the sadder as the eve of my departure
approaches and I know that I am not going to Italy. Sadder still,
Norman, for the news of Charles Prentice's death in Kenya, a fact
first brought to my notice by David Low at our lunch at the Garrick
Club. He had asked me to join him there some time ago, and Willie
King was the third. David knew no more than the papers told him
of Charles's death, and of course they were very old friends from
Oxford days and therefore also closely connected in my mind with
you from the early days of your Chatto & Windus connection.

/Much....

Much has been turning over in my mind with regard to John Davenport's projected work of criticism and appraisal of your books. The contract with John is just about to go through and he has just rung up to say that Stephen Potter has asked him to do a critique of SOUTH WIND for the new and transformed "Leader", of which he is editor. Of John's activities on his new paper I dare not enquire too far. This fellow-travelling business is always so complicated. However, I feel certain that he is the right person and believe that you do too, judging from your letters to him. Meanwhile there is the egregious FitzGibbon - Marmaduke or Constantine or even Hadrian, I cannot remember. I am told he beachcombs on Capri. David J. was amusing about him, John D. harsh. What am I to believe? Perhaps you can enlighten me. By a strange concatenation of events in one week I learned a considerable amount about his past: nothing of his present. His sister, Geraldine Colvile, is at present working on translation from Colette, whose works we are soon going to publish, if not in toto at least in eight volumes. She told me that her brother was writing a book about you. That very weekend I was staying with John Russell for the Aldeburgh Music Festival and John had been at Oxford with him and had, as his fourth party, a young Historical Fellow of New College, a buddy, also acquainted with FitzGibbon. They told me all about his first marriage, they told me a lot else not fit for this letter. To sum up, I would say that he was always extravagantly promising more than he could fulfil. Then at the end of that week Desmond Flower, of Cassells, straight back from New York told me that it was he who had commissioned the book on Norman Douglas, that he had signed up for it in America, at the same time contracting to publish two novels by the same young man. Strange, isn't it, that all these things come together and yet one has no picture of the person concerned?

Do tell me the truth about Princess Margaret. Some say that she met you on two occasions, others that she was not permitted to. No doubt you had no desire to meet her. Then there were the stories of the two "Daily Express" photographers swimming out in the guise of boatmen (thought I should have thought this would only need one garment) to take close-ups of the wretched girl at her happiest moment of freedom in the water. These, I know, were grossly travested in the French press: in fact, led to some enormous fine being imposed upon the editor who changed the form of majesty into something far more degrading by simply keeping the head of our English Rose on some Italian or French model. It seems unkind that the girl couldn't really enjoy herself as she wanted: there is no doubt that she has a way with her, and I imagine usually

/gets...

Telephone · Holborn 4855/6

Telegrams · PSOPHIDIAN

MARTIN SECKER & WARBURG LTD

- 3 -

8th July, 1949

gets it! The clever old Pope I should think put quite a
lot of sense into her head in that short 20 minutes, when she
went garbed in the fancy dress of at least three different
people. Cecile Howard, with whom my sister was staying at
that moment after her return from Cyprus, had the most delicious
stories of the dressing-up.

If David Farrer does manage to get over to Capri he will
bring my very best love. What can go into the writing of a
signature goes into this, dear Norman,

RHPS/MS

F. J. WARBURG
R. N. P. SENHOUSE

MARTIN SECKER & WARBURG LTD

AIR MAIL

19th October, 1948.

My dear Norman,

How very pleasant to hear from you - even though it is
only a short note in a sense reprimanding us for not having sent
you copies of the new edition of SOUTH WIND. We hasten to
remedy this oversight, and send you two copies by separate post.

I see that we have been addressing you at Bel Soggiorno,
though I hear that you are now living in the Little House of
Olives, or some such title, which no one seems to have in its
correct form. I know that Isola Capri finds you as quickly as
any exact address, since you are a freeman of that Island, but
we would like to have it for our files. In fact, Christopher
Stone rang me up about it last week, saying that he had been
approached by the Scottish B.B.C. with regard to some programme
concerned with you and your works to be given - I think - on the
11th November. No doubt you will have heard from him by now
since I have heard no more. Douglas Parrish came round here
on Saturday morning, when the office was not open, to try and
discover your address, and found me working here and so I was
able to give him the old address. He has just gone off to
Denmark to work as a farm labourer it would seem for the next
three or four months, through that fiendishly cold Danish winter.
I was able to let him have some fairly warm clothes which were
over from fire watching in the war, but one thing he wanted, of
course, was ear-pads, for I take it it can be as cold as Finland
round about Christmas in Denmark. He goes to his old friend,
Sid Sanders, who left the Army as a captain and decided to buy
a little larger property than he could manage with his wife.

Yes, I am feeling ashamed that I never let you know about
my holiday plans. I seem to have used up all my available, and
now infinitesimal allowance in foreign currency in two delicious
trips to Paris during the Spring weather. It may amuse you to
know that for my holiday I had to rely on the good offices of the
British Council of Social Hygiene Inc. to take me to their Summer
School at Lausanne for a fortnight, in return for two lectures on

/Edward....

F. J. WARBURG
R. H. SENHOUSE

MARTIN SECKER & WARBURG LTD

- 2 -

19th October, 1948.

Edward Gibbon, the second under the title of "The state of Gibbon's liver while writing the final chapter of the "Decline and Fall""! Of course, it was nothing to do with that since who is to know? but it was quite bright and interesting and the Swiss particularly seemed pleased about it since they have produced at the University of Lausanne a splendid edition of Gibbon's JOURNAL, with first-rate editing and notes. Indeed, over one hundred letters of Gibbon's have been found in Switzerland over the last eighteen months, and in the short time I had in the two libraries at Lausanne and Geneva I was able to see that there was much more material - Voltaire letters, Cuchad etc., - which have never been properly collated. This may well mean a return visit next year, but I think other people will be at work on it by then.

Peter de Polnay gave me a little news of you, for having ravaged the island of Cyprus and left it for good, he wrote me that he was taking in Capri on his return to comfort the disconsolate Gray. All this I have had from him in the course of a few conversations, but he is always in such a hurry to tell one some uninteresting detail of his personal life that I never hear the full story of what interests me most.

I ran into Viva last week to find her still fuming over Willie's behaviour during their short French visit when they went to Montpellier together, and, I think, to some other exhibition of ceramics and china. "I really felt like leaving him after two days, he was so tiresome," she said. Of course, she never really intended this, but was herself I think rather over-excited by the success of her extraordinary visit, under the auspices of the British Council, to give a lecture on mediaeval costume in Berlin. How she got there remains a mystery, and her account of the lecture is unbearably funny; though she likes to think her paragraph on codepieces was properly understood by her German audience, whereas I am quite certain that it was not! All that fuss about sending in the English actors to Berlin has not yet died down. The Continental Daily Mail said that in order to relieve the ever-increasing weight of the air lift even the keys under the sardine tins had been removed, and yet they dared to send in Dadie Bylands and the Marlow Society. As if there could be any relation between those two appendages!

/There....