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Lot 197
GREENE (GRAHAM) Series of sixteen letters signed ("Graham"), to his fellow novelist Anthony Powell ("Dear Tony"), the majority written in Greene's capacity as director of fiction at Eyre & Spottiswode, London and France, 1940-1986
15 June 2016, 14:00 BST
London, KnightsbridgeSold for £4,500 inc. premium
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GREENE (GRAHAM)
Series of sixteen letters signed ("Graham"), to his fellow novelist Anthony Powell ("Dear Tony"), the majority written in Greene's capacity as director of fiction at Eyre & Spottiswode, the first written from wartime London when Literary Editor of "this rag" The Spectator ("...London is quite extraordinarily pleasant these days with all the new open spaces, and the rather Mexican effect of ruined churches. I have a private ambition to do Free French propaganda in French Guinea and the Ivory Coast from a base in Liberia... my house has been blasted into wreckage by a land mine, and I sleep on a sofa in a Gower St. mews. As I'm under a skylight I go into a basement when the barrage is heavy..."); most of the letters concerning the reprint of Powell's novel Afternoon Men for Eyre & Spottiswode's Century Library ("...I disagree with your alterations of words which have now got a kind of period flavour... The penultimate sentence seems wrong... the last sentence on this page is a bit overdoing things...") and their publication of John Aubrey and His Friends, others suggesting books for review or commissioning introductions ("...I have a sort of feeling that you are a Raffles fan..."); together with several letters signed on his behalf ("...I have just been signing the agreements for Aubrey, three novels and a reprint for the Century Library. I have seldom signed contracts with as much satisfaction. What about the title for the Century Library? David tells me you favour Afternoon Men. It is a long time since I have read the books but I should have inclined to From a View to a Death or What's Become of Waring? On the other hand I agree that Afternoon Men is very representative of its period...") and two letters by Greene's colleague Douglas Jerrold, the company's managing director ("...I was very astonished just after I got back from the States to find a letter from David Higham notifying us that the contract with you for your new novels was to be regarded as cancelled..."); one of Greene's letters addressed to Powell's wife, Lady Violet, and the last entirely in his hand, in all some 25 pages, most on Eyre & Spottiswode stationery, 4to and 8vo, London and France, 1940-1986
Footnotes
ʻTHE LAST SENTENCE ON THIS PAGE IS A BIT OVERDOING THINGS' – LETTERS TO ANTHONY POWELL FROM HIS PUBLISHER, GRAHAM GREENE. Powell's association with Greene at Eyre & Spottiswode came to an inglorious end over the protracted delay in publishing Powell's John Aubrey and Friends which Greene one day in an unguarded moment over lunch had told him was ʻa bloody boring book anyway'; prompting Powell to remark in his autobiography: ʻGreene's comment, perfectly acceptable as the bluff judgement of some friend not much conversant with the 17th century, or salutary criticism of a fellow novelist dissatisfied with the technical arrangement of biographical material, was, to say the least, discouraging from the managing director of the firm responsible for marketing the book in question. The scene now strikes me as hilarious. At the time I was ruffled' (To Keep the Ball Rolling, p.314). As a consequence, Greene released Powell from his contract. The board of directors did not see eye-to-eye with this decision, Jerrold writing to Powell: "Graham has no more power to release you from your contract with the firm than I have to sell the company's furniture". This in its turn led to Greene's resignation. He wrote to Powell on 14 December 1948: "I expect you have heard by this time that I have resigned from the board of Eyre & Spottiswode. Your case really brought matters to a head but the boil had been growing for many months. It is quite true that I offered to release you from your novel contract and, between ourselves, I was not prepared to remain on the board of a company which kept any author to the letter of a contract"; adding: "Now that we are again in the position of friends and not of author and publisher, do look in for a drink!" This, and the first of the series, is published in Graham Greene: A Life in Letters, edited by Richard Greene (2007).