To Leonard Moore
21 Eastcourt Avenue Headingly Leeds
Dear Mr Moore,
Many thanks for your letter and the proof. I am sending the latter back to Gollancz direct, to save time. I hope and trust there will be no further objections now. I have made all the alterations suggested by Mr Rubinstein but have left the others mentioned by the Fanfare Press which Mr Rubinstein says “do not seem to matter in the context.” I may mention that some products stated by the Fanfare Press to be real products were ones I had invented myself with no notion that anything of that name was actually on the market. One or two of the things they mentioned could not very well be altered, eg. they mention the reference to Drage’s, which occurs in the poem in the middle of the book as a rhyme, and therefore obviously could not be changed…
I wonder if I could get hold of a proof copy of Alec Browne’s forthcoming book “The Fate of the Middle Classes,” which Gollancz is publishing. I think I could undertake to do a short review of it either for the Adelphi
or the New English Weekly, but actually I want it in connection with the book I am projecting now, as by its title it seems to be discussing a matter I shall have to touch on. I never buy new books nowadays and I might not be able to get it from the library, but I don’t want to put Gollancz to the expense of a bound copy, so if he could let me have a proof copy I would be greatly obliged.Yours sincerely
Eric A. Blair
[11 March 1936 / typewritten]
While on the road researching The Road to Wigan Pier George Orwell (i.e. Eric A. Blair) was also in negotiations with his publishers about edits to the manuscript of his recent novel Keep the Aspidistra Flying. (See previous entries on 18 Feb and 19 Feb.)
When we meet the novel’s protagonist, Gordon Comstock, he is an advertising copywriter - hence Orwell’s reference to invented ‘products’. Though Comstock has a talent for writing, he detests the work and seeks to rebel against ‘the Money God’.
Annotated in Moore’s office: ‘phoned Gollancz 12/3/36.’
The review was published in The Adelphi in May 1936. Alec Brown’s last name had no ‘e’.