MR. NORMAN DOUGLAS'S CAVEAT
Sta,—In your issue of May 29th, 1942, there is a letter from Mr. Norman Douglas complaining of an article by me in the Queen (April 22nd). I know nothing of this article, which was certainly not authorised by me, and. Mr. Douglas's letter is the first I have heard about it. The facts are these. In the spring of 1939 I wrote a review of the Oxford reprint of Old Calabria for the Atlantic Monthly; and in November, 1941, Esquire published a short biographical sketch by me of Mr. Douglas, based on his book Looking Back, and on his owa conversation and facts supplied by friends. Mr. Douglas says the second is a " transcript " of the first, in which he is quite mistaken But since he believes this to be so. how
does he account for the fact that he wrote me a pleased and grateful letter about the Old Calabria review (" too flattering, but why not? " he wrote), and now discovers that the " transcript " (which is not a transcript) is " tiresome," " incorrect " and " American trash "?
Mr. Douglas particularly refers to pages 219-24o of his Looking Back in refutation of what I wrote about his leaving Russia and the service of the Foreign Office. All I have to say is that what I wrote was based on those pages and on what Mr. Douglas told me himself to round out the picture. I am sorry indeed to think Mr. Douglas should have been hurt by this, but I had not the slightest idea that I had written anything he would disapprove of, especially as my article in general was laudatory and he had so recently, though in a friendly way, accused me of being " too flattering."
It will be found that the pages about Mr. Douglas in my Life for Life's Sake are also friendly, and even flattering, although it is true that on pp. 375-376 I venture to say that I did not altogether approve af his be- haviour to D. H. Lawrence in the Maurice Magnus fiasco. Mr. Douglas is too modest in thinking that the public will not " relish " personal re- miniscences about him, for though he is not a duchess, neither is he an " ordinary writer." And really if he believed this why did he publish a book of 509 pages entirely consisting of gossip about himself and his friends, that admirable Looking Back to which I referred frequently to check my own memories and information?
If Mr. Douglas will be good enough to furnish me with his corrections of anything concerning him in my book, I shall be very happy to make use of them in future American editions and any English or other edition.
—Yours faithfully, RICHARD ALDINGTON. C/o The Viking Press, r8 East 45th Street, New York City, N.Y., U.S.A.
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