Feet of Clay SIMON RAVEN

Letters to Macmillan edited by Simon Nowell- Smith (Macmillan 55s)

185-

Dear old Mac : Now that Tom Brown is selling like hot potatoes, what about a whole series? Tom Brown at Oxford, Tom Brown in London, Tom Brown in Paris, Rome, Pekin . .

Yours aye, Thos. Hughes.

My dear Hughes: Do try not to celebrate quite so lavishly.

Ever yours faithfully, Daniel Macmillan.

187- Sir : You may be interested to know that I have at last completed the third Epic poem in my trilogy. This, which is provisionally entitled The Death of Achilles, I am forwarding per parcel post for your kind attention.

I am, Sir, Your obedient servant, Homer.

My dear Homer: My two advisers on Greek poetry (Mr Walter Pater and Mr Richard Jebb) opine that a third epic from your Pen could only do harm to your reputation, as being bound to cause much extra work and resent- ment in scholarly circles. To their opinion I should add my own, that the indelicate be- haviour of your gods and heroes would scan- dalise domestic proprieties and constitute a strong commercial disadvantage. While the public is prepared to overlook your coarseness in two such established masterpieces as the Iliad and the Odyssey, it will certainly feel that your more recent work should reflect contem- porary refinement.

Regretfully yours, Alexander Macmillan.

188-

Dear Macmillan : It has been my long-standing practice (as you may be surprised to hear) to engage in periodical remonstrance with those uphappy and degraded young women who haunt our streets for the purpose of venal inter- course with the male sex. As a result of conver- sations conducted over many years, I have now assembled some hundreds of curricula vitae (or curricula vitii, should I say?) which might prove of interest and instruction to the adult reader. Might I suggest publication in tasteful and costly style (to discourage the merely trivo- kus) under some such title as Daughters of he Night?

Yours very sincerely, William Ewart Gladstone.

My dear Prime Minister: May I respectfully urge that after the recent events in Khartoum you would b ill advised to risk any further popular misunderstanding:?

Your sincerely, Malcolm Kingsley Macmilla3.

190-

Dear Macmillan : I was distressed to learn from your last letter that The Tragic Muse has only sold twenty-seven copies since its first appear- ance in England last year. Can nothing be done?

Yours ever, Henry James.

My dear James: Nothing.

Yours ever, Frederick Orridge Macmillan.

192-

My dear George: Just to say how much I en- joyed Thomas Hardy's funeral in the Abbey. Congratters on organishig such a splendid show. It was good of you to print my tribute so pro: minently on the service sheet, but didn't you miss a chance here? There would have been ample room on the same page for a list of all my published novels to date, if only you had omitted that sentimental twaddle of Barrie's (It's a sad day the noo,' etc, etc.).

Yours, Hugh Walpole.

My dear Hugh : I have taken a full page adver- tisement of Rogue Herries in next Sunday's Observer to make up.

Yours, George Augustin Macmillan.

My dear George : Why not the Sunday Times. as well?

Hugh.

193-

My dear Harold : A young friend of mine has just shown me some very promising . .

. . My dear Eddie : Not again, please. (Maurice) Harold Macmillan.

194-

Dear Mr Macmillan : I am very displeased to see that Street Songs has been reviewed by some pert young ignoramus in The Nation, not alone, but in company with the Collected Poems of A. E. Housman, whoever he may be. Pray be so good as to write to the editor and demand a printed apology in the next issue. War or no war, we can't afford such Philistine dis- regard of literary standards. The whole thing has been such a shock to my sensibilities that I must spend the next month in bed.

Yours most bitterly persecuted, Edith Sitwell. Renishaw.

Dear Miss Sitwell : A. E. Housman is, unfor- tunately, dead, otherwise he would be the first to recognise the enormity of this blunder. The editor of The Nation is less percipient, I fear. When I rang him up this a.m. to state your re- quest, he responded with a gale of epicene giggles.

Yours apologetically, William Edward Frank Macmillan.

1968

My dear Mr Macmillan : Our attention has 5 been drawn to a selection of correspondence which you have just printed under the title of Letters to Macmillan. This graceful and expen- ;•

sive volume includes letters to and from over eighty authors published by your great House during the last 115 years; but there is not so much as a penny postcard from us.

Your editor, Mr Simon Nowell-Smith, re- marking the omission, says that it is due to lack of interest in our letters or our stories. We should have thought, on the contrary, that some account of the really huge sums 'of money made for you by ourselves and our fellow compilers of text-books would have amused readers con- siderably more than the asinine and insipid communications of Palgrave and Alfred Austin and others . . few of whom would ever have been published had you not been able to rely, with such complacency, on the perennial profit to be had, Sir, From your humble and uninteresting servants, Hall and Knight.