May 04, 2017 - Sale 2446

Sale 2446 - Lot 357

Price Realized: $ 469
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 700 - $ 1,000
"NO POINT IN . . . GOING TO RUSSIA IN ORDER . . . TO HEAR T.S. ELIOT ABUSED" FORSTER, EDWARD MORGAN. Two Autograph Letters Signed, "EMForster." The first, to Harold Orlansky, requesting that his scholarly work include no speculation about how place names in Howards End might be related to actual places. The second, to "Dear Dr. Comfort," giving three considerations that should be addressed if a delegation of British writers were to be sent to Russia [to meet at a proposed second World Congress of Intellectuals]. Each 2 pages, small 4to or 8vo, each written on the recto and verso of a single sheet, "King's College" stationery; folds. (MRS) Aldeburgh, 19 April 1950; Cambridge, 21 September 1951
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1950: ". . . I should be obliged if, in your study, you did not introduce any conjectured identifications of houses or sites mentioned in Howards End. . . . I thought I would mention the point, since there are people alive to whom such conjectures might be unwelcome."
1951: ". . . I do not see how your organisation can well refuse this difficult invitation, but I do not like [Ilya] Ehrenburg or trust him. One or two points occur to me, which you may care to consider if the scheme advances. (i) All delegates should sign a declaration that they are not communists and not affiliated to any communist party. This would diminish criticism of the delegation over here, though it would not avoid it. (ii) Ehrenburg should be asked for some guarantee that the scandalous atmosphere of the conference in Poland should not be reproduced and more particularly whether Fadayef [Alexander Fadeyev] . . . will again be present. There seems no point in our writers going to Russia in order to be brow beaten and talked down, and to hear T.S. Eliot abused. (iii) Writers convey their opinions best in their books. An important question for the delegation to ask is: What leading cont[emporary] works of British writers have been translated into Russian . . . ?"