THE SOCIETY OF AUTHORS

84 DRAYTON GARDENS

LONDON, S.W.10

Telephone: Fremantle 6642 (2 lines)

8th December, 1950.

Norman Douglas Esq.,
Villa Tuoro,
Capri.

Dear Mr. Douglas,

I have been delaying replying to your letter of the 14th October until I had taken soundings in likely waters in connection with the Orioli Diary; the trouble is that British publishers draw in their horns at the slightest hint of crisis, international or otherwise, and they are distinctly chary at the moment of entering into new commitments until they have examined them under microscopes. Even so, I am fairly hopeful and I think it would be a good idea, as you suggest, if you would send the script over to me.

I appreciate what you say about Venus in the Kitchen and the matter of the signed copies of the Capri book; but I would very much like to see Venus in the Kitchen in print and I hope that when you are feeling well again you will give it some further thought and let me have your suggestions.

The £25 to which you refer in the third paragraph of your letter, represented the Society's commission on the £250 payable to you under the Contract with Sidgwick and Jackson in its final form. The Society will, incidentally, be responsible for any expenses incurred by the consultation with the income-tax expert who helped us to find a formula for avoiding your liability for tax in this matter.

The document which you sent with your letter will be kept carefully in the Society's archives so that it is available for reference when occasion arises.

With kindest regards and all good wishes,

Yours sincerely,

dkr.22

THE SOCIETY OF AUTHORS

84 DRAYTON GARDENS
LONDON S.W.10

Telephone : Fremantle 6642 (2 lines)

President :
John Masefield, O.M.

Chairman :
Arthur Bryant, C.B.E., LL.D.

Secretary-General :
D. Kilham Roberts, O.B.E.

24th April 1950.

Norman Douglas Esq.,
Villa Tuoro,
Capri,
Naples, Italy.

Dear Mr. Douglas,

I wrote to you a little while ago about
"Venus in the Kitchen" which provided not only
the occasion, but the menu for a recent luncheon
party at 15 Thurloe Square.

Davis (of Davis & Orioli), who has the
typescript, wants to produce a special edition
of 300 copies to sell at two guineas each, and
on his estimate this would enable him to make
you a lump sum payment of £50. Separate
arrangements could then be made for the
publication of a popular edition under some
other imprint and Selwyn Jepson (Edgar Jepson's
son), who is a director of a firm of publishers,
is very much interested in this possibility.
Both he and Davis feel that it would make a
great difference to the book's prospects if you
could be prevailed upon to contribute a 500 word
preface, and provide a brief history of the way
in which this anthology came to be compiled,

Over . . .

THE SOCIETY OF AUTHORS

84 DRAYTON GARDENS
LONDON, S.W.10

President:
John Masefield, O.M.

Chairman:
Arthur Bryant, C.B.E., LL.D.

Secretary-General:
D. Kilham Roberts, O.B.E.

8th February, 1951.

Dear Mr. Douglas,

Thank you for your letter of the
30th January with the letter from Messrs.
Layton-Bennett of the 22nd January enclosed.

When I wrote to you on May 2nd last year
about the Lindsay Drummond liquidation and
the Benn proposal, you indicated in your
reply that you would prefer the Benn proposal
to be declined, and I gave instructions to
our Solicitors accordingly.

I am sure, myself, that "Late Harvest"
would be out of place in Benn's list, and I
remain hopeful that I may yet succeed in
persuading Harold Raymond to take it over for
Chatto, where it would be in much more
congenial company.

over....

THE SOCIETY OF AUTHORS

14th February, 1950.

Norman Douglas Esq.,
Villa Tuoro,
Capri, Naples.

Dear Mr. Douglas,

Thank you for your letter.

The Contract with Sidgwick & Jackson would in the ordinary way have been drawn up by us on the usual royalty basis with a grant to the publishers of an exclusive licence to print and publish in volume form in the English language either throughout the British Empire or throughout the world with the exception of the U.S.A. and its dependencies. As, however, on the present occasion you preferred the idea of a lump sum payment instead of royalties Mr. Knapp-Fisher took it for granted that you were selling all rights in the book to him for the sum agreed. In the Contract we did in fact reserve to you all rights other than the volume form publication rights and you will remember that I wrote to you to tell you that Mr. Knapp-Fisher had also expressed his willingness to share equally with you proceeds from volume form publication of translations. If you now wish the U.S.A. to be excluded from the terms of the assignment Mr. Knapp-Fisher will have second thoughts about the sum he is willing to pay. Even with the U.S.A. included I had no little difficulty in inducing him to raise his bid to the figure finally settled. If you will let me know what you and Mr. Macpherson decide I will proceed accordingly.

Meanwhile, I enclose for your completion and return a Proxy Form relating to the voluntary liquidation of Lindsay Drummond Limited, publishers of your LATE HARVEST. The Society's solicitors Messrs. Field Roscoe will deal with the matter on your behalf at the Society's expense. The General Proxy Form is the one requiring completion.

over...

THE SOCIETY OF AUTHORS

84 DRAYTON GARDENS

LONDON, S.W.10

12th January, 1950.

Dear Mr. Douglas,

I have been discussing with Mr. Knapp-Fisher a point that has occurred to us both about the Agreement with Sidgwick & Jackson. In the form as signed by you and Knapp-Fisher it took the shape of a licence and the entire copyright remained vested in yourself. This was a good idea to the extent that it left you with fuller control than would be the case were the Agreement to be in the form of an assignment of part of your copyright. The difficulty is, however, that there is very little chance that the Revenue authorities would be willing to treat the outright payment as free of tax unless actual property is passing in the shape of the whole or part of your copyright. I have, therefore, redrawn the Agreement accordingly and on the advice of an income-tax consultant with experience of this sort of problem I have also, in the recitals, substituted your own address for that of the Society of Authors. I have also provisionally arranged with Knapp-Fisher for the money to be sent to you direct by Sidgwick & Jackson after deduction of the Society's commission.

The Agreement in its new form is enclosed and if, in the circumstances, you think it would be wise to adopt it in place of the Agreement previously signed I shall be glad if you will sign and return it to me, intialling where indicated at the foot of the first page. Knapp-Fisher will then at once proceed with arrangements for despatching the money to you. A spare copy of the new Agreement is also enclosed for your record purposes.

dkr.gc

THE SOCIETY OF AUTHORS

84 DRAYTON GARDENS
LONDON S.W. 10.

19th March, 1946.

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

20

Dear Mr. Douglas,

My luncheon to-day with Warburg and Senhouse was a
very pleasant and friendly affair, and they both seem extremely
anxious to be cooperative.

The position with regard to their publication of "South
Wind" seems to be that they took over the original agreement
between yourself and Martin Secker of September 1916, and that this
agreement was subsequently varied by letter. Senhouse has promised
to send me a copy of this letter, and I will write to you further
when I have received it. Neither he nor Warburg appear to have any
objection to the making of a new agreement to cover the forthcoming
and future editions of "South Wind", but they are anxious not to
behave incorrectly by Hughes Massie. I told them that they had better
leave you and me to clear up any complications in this connection.
Whether, in fact, Hughes Massie will be willing to stand wholly or
partially aside, in view of the fact that they were responsible for the
original agreement, and for the collection of all royalties since that
time, is, I imagine, more than a little doubtful, but I hope that we
may, at least, succeed in attaining some sort of workable compromise.

With regard to the question of Scribners bringing out an
American edition, I gather from Senhouse that John Carter is really
rather keener about the idea than Carter himself led me to believe.
I said that however this might be, the next move must certainly be
with Carter, and that we should like to have a definite clear-cut
proposition from him. Senhouse appreciated this, and said that he
would be seeing Carter in the course of the next few days, and would
ask him whether he was yet in a position to make a firm offer, with
or without conditions attached on the subject of the contemplated
new Preface.

Both Senhouse and Warburg seem genuinely anxious to have
this new Preface for the English edition, regardless of the American
outcome, but they are also reluctant to hold up the publication of
the new English edition indefinitely. I told them that I thought

- 2 -

you would probably let them have a definite decision on this point
when you had heard what Carter had got to say.

With kindest regards,

Yours sincerely,

P. S. I have just been talking to Brunius, and as a result
of our conversation, I am preparing an agreement for
French language publication of "In the Beginning".

THE SOCIETY OF AUTHORS

84 DRAYTON GARDENS
LONDON S.W.10.

15th March, 1946.

Dear Mr. Douglas,

Your letter of yesterday with the letter you have
had from Hughes Massie enclosed, arrived this morning, and I at
once referred to your agreement with Martin Secker to see what
agency rights Hughes Massie had under it.

The agreement ceded to Secker the exclusive right to
print and publish "South Wind" in volume form in the United Kingdom
of Great Britain and Ireland, its colonies and dependancies. A
subsequent clause reserved inter alia the rights of translation, and
the final clause empowered Hughes Massie to act on your behalf
in all matters arising out of the agreement.

This means that in the absence of any other authority
which they may hold from you, Hughes Massie cannot claim to be
entitled to deal with your translation rights, and I suggest that
the best plan will be for you to write and tell them that your
literary affairs, including arrangements for the translation rights
of your various books, are now handled by the Society of Authors.

Roger Senhouse has just telephoned to say that he and
Warburg will lunch with me on Tuesday. I shall be writing to you
after the meeting, and before then I will have a copy made of your
Martin Secker agreement, and return the original to you.

With this letter I am returning the letter from
Hughes Massie.

11th March 1946.

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

Dear Mr. Douglas,

I have not yet had my meeting with Senhouse, but at the end of last week I had a few words with John Carter and from what he said I got the impression that his interest in the idea of Scribners bringing out a new authorised edition of South Wind in America was hardly more than lukewarm. After his first talk with Senhouse when Senhouse told him of the new English edition Carter appears to have written to America tentatively putting the suggestion forward. Subsequently, at what I take to be a second meeting with Senhouse, Carter seems to have become more doubtful about the project since the new edition would be less substantially different from existing editions than he had understood would be the case. He is still awaiting a reply from America and until it arrives there is presumably nothing to be done.

On the other hand I remain rather mystified as to the basis on which

THE SOCIETY OF AUTHORS

TEMPLETON ADDRESS = BRIARLEAF HOUSE, MORTIMER, BERKSHIRE

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

8th February, 1946.

Dear Mr. Douglas,

Thank you for your letter of February 5th with the agreement
with Martin Secker for SOUTH WIND enclosed. Thank you, too, for
your great kindness in sending me a copy of the 1945 edition and
for so generously writing in it for me. It is odd that Senhouse
and Warburg should have failed to spot the blunder about the
dating on the title page.

There is also a striking oddity about the Secker agreement,
in that it nowhere provides for what the royalties are to be on
copies of any editions published at a price in excess of 6/-.
On the face of it one would suspect a typing error on Secker's
part in the first section of the royalty clause, where a royalty
of 15% rising to 25% after the sale of 2,000 copies is prescribed
for "editions published at not more than 6/-". It looks rather
as if the "not" crept in when no one was looking, especially as
the next section deals with the royalties to be paid on the
cheaper editions in excess of 1/-, without any indication of the
figure at the opposite end of the cheap edition scale. However,
from the legal point of view the agreement must be assumed to
mean what it says in the absence of any correspondence or other
evidence to the contrary, and this would provide additional
prima facie justification for a completely new agreement with
Secker & Warburg for which the Society of Authors would replace
Hughes Massie as your representative.

The only practical argument I can see against this is that
although the original Secker agreement is in certain respects
unsatisfactory, its royalty terms compare favourably with those
which most publishers are in a position to offer in present
conditions. There are, for instance, very few authors indeed
drawing a 25% royalty at the present time in the case of books
published at less than half a guinea.

Would you like me to have a word with Senhouse about the
whole situation, or would you prefer to do this yourself in the
light of your own dealings with him and his firm in the
remarks I have made above.

The information you have given me about the chequered
history of SOUTH WIND in the U.S.A. will be most helpful, as

THE SOCIETY OF AUTHORS

Telephone: 01351 234663, Fremantle 6642/3

TEMPLETON X A K K X B R I A K E A K P O O S E X M O R T I M E R X B E R K S H E E K

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

31st January, 1946.

Dear Mr. Douglas,

The Register of Copyrights at the Library of Congress - they call him the Register and not the Registrar - is of course the person who will finally decide whether the new edition of SOUTH WIND is sufficiently different to justify him in accepting it for registration as a new book. Even if he does accept it for registration it does not necessarily mean that its American publishers would succeed in any legal action they might have to take to restrain another firm from pirating the book in its new form, since the Courts might hold against the registration. All the same registration would be likely to have the effect of deterring pirates and of giving the American publishers of the new edition a clear run for their money. Any contract will, however, have to be very carefully drawn so as to ensure that no liability is to attach to you if anything goes wrong.

We shall be very glad to attend to all this, but in the first instance we ought perhaps to have particulars of the publication history of SOUTH WIND in the U.S.A. My recollection is that numerous piratical editions have appeared there, but I do not recall whether in any case, or cases, formal or informal agreements with yourself were made, nor if they were, whether their scope would hamper you in entering into the new projected agreement with Scribners. If you previously had an agent acting for you in regard to American publication and his agency has not been terminated, it would be as well to write and tell him that you have no further need of his services. This of course also applies to any agency arrangements you may have in other parts of the world, but I have gathered from our previous correspondence that you are free of any obligations of the kind.

With regard to Secker and Warburg, has an agreement covering the new edition already been made, or do you want this attended to also? If I am right in thinking that the original agreement was made with Martin Secker and that Secker and Warburg took it over after Secker's failure, I suppose it is possible that that agreement covers arrangements for the new edition, subject to such minor adjustments as you and Senhouse have privately agreed, but you will be able to enlighten me about this.

Villa Tuoro
Capri

1 August 1950

Dear Mr. Kilham Roberts,

Many thanks for your letter of 19 July.

With many thanks,

VENUS IN THE KITCHEN

RICE WITH SHRIMPS

CHOP VERY FINE a branch of celery, a small carrot, half an onion, a clove of garlic, and put all in a pan with a small piece of butter and half a spoonful of olive oil and fry till brown. Have ready half a pound of shelled shrimps. Take half of them and let them fry with the above ingredients for a few minutes, season with pepper and salt, and go on adding hot water little by little till you have put enough for cooking in it one pound of rice. Let the water boil at least a quarter of an hour.

Pass through a sieve, seeing that the meat of the
shrimps goes well through. When passed, put it in a
saucepan over the fire, and when boiling add one
pound of rice and a piece of butter. Let the rice
absorb the liquid. If it becomes too dry before being
cooked, add a little hot water, but the rice must not
be too moist. When nearly cooked, add the other half
of the shrimps, mix well, and serve with grated
parmesan cheese.

ATHENIAN EELS

TAKE SOME GOOD STOCK, a few mushrooms, one
tablespoonful of vinegar, one of French mustard, one
of anchovy sauce, and a little chopped parsley. Mix all

26

FISH AND SHELLFISH

the above together in a stewpan and let it simmer for
about fifteen minutes.

Have your eels cut into small pieces, after having
them washed and dried with a cloth. Flour them
lightly and put them to fry in boiling olive oil. When
fried put them on a dish and pour over them the above
sauce. Serve very hot.

BAKED EELS

FOR THREE POUNDS OF EELS put in a casserole four ounces of butter, set it on a good fire, and when melted sprinkle in it a teaspoonful of flour, stirring the while; also, a pinch of grated nutmeg, salt, pepper, a saltspoonful of chopped parsley, two or three mush-rooms, also chopped, then the eels; Pour on it a glass of white wine, and a liqueur-glass of French brandy; cover the casserole, take it from the fire, and put it in a moderately heated oven, and serve when done just as it is, in the casserole.

BAKED FRESH HADDOCK

CLEAN THE FISH and put inside it a few slices of
lemon. Make a few cuts on the back and in each cut

27

THE SOCIETY OF AUTHORS

84 DRAYTON GARDENS

LONDON, S.W. 10

1st February, 1950.

Dear Mr. Douglas,

I am distressed to hear about your fire and hope that you
didn't lose too many valuable or cherished possessions. I am
enclosing a copy of the letter which I sent you with the revised
Contract. Also enclosed is a further copy of the Contract
identical with the one previously sent except in one particular.
This is the substitution of two years for one year in Clause 1
in response to a request from Knapp-Fisher who writes:-

"As I explained to you on the telephone, I
should be grateful if the last two lines of Clause
1. of the contract could be altered to read "within
2 (two) years of the date of delivery of the
complete typescript" instead of "within 1 year".

"My reasons for wishing this are as follows:

1) It is not a book that we wish to hurry out
as the selection of the photographs is of vital
importance and in certain cases we shall have to
ask Mr. de Courcy Lyons to re-photograph.

2) We have got to get the material so arranged
that Norman Douglas's text, short though it is,
predominates and is not subordinate to the
illustrations as it would be at present.

3) Although I think Norman Douglas's text can
stand as it is at present, I propose to write to
him and ask for certain references to be included

over....

THE SOCIETY OF AUTHORS

12th January, 1950.

Dear Mr. Douglas,

I have been discussing with Mr. Knapp-Fisher a point that has occurred to us both about the Agreement with Sidgwick & Jackson. In the form as signed by you and Knapp-Fisher it took the shape of a licence and the entire copyright remained vested in yourself. This was a good idea to the extent that it left you with fuller control than would be the case were the Agreement to be in the form of an assignment of part of your copyright. The difficulty is, however, that there is very little chance that the Revenue authorities would be willing to treat the outright payment as free of tax unless actual property is passing in the shape of the whole or part of your copyright. I have, however, redrawn the Agreement accordingly and on the advice of an income-tax consultant with experience of this sort of problem I have also, in the recitals, substituted your own address for that of the Society of Authors. I have also provisionally arranged with Knapp-Fisher for the money to be sent to you direct by Sidgwick & Jackson after deduction of the Society's commission.

The Agreement in its new form is enclosed and if, in the circumstances, you think it would be wise to adopt it in place of the Agreement previously signed I shall be glad if you will sign and return it to me, initialling where indicated at the foot of the first page. Knapp-Fisher will then at once proceed with arrangements for despatching the money to you. A spare copy of the new Agreement is also enclosed for your record purposes.

Yours very sincerely,