Note about plain text quality:
This text has been scanned from the printed page using an automated process called Optical Character Recognition (OCR). The text will in many cases not be 100 per cent accurate. Older articles tend to have very inaccurate readings, because of archaic typefaces and spellings and damaged source material.
T. S. Eliot And 'Animal Farm': Reasons For Rejection Letters to the Editor From Mrs. T. S. Eliot Sir,-In today's Diary, Mr. Frederic Warburg is reported as saying that he does not know why T. S. Eliot (in his capacity as a director of Faber & Faber) rejected Animal Farm. To save specu- lation, I quote below the letter written tO George OrWell by my husband on July 13th, 1944:- " Dear OrwelU, I know that you wanted a quick deci' sion about Animal Farm; but the mini- mum is two directors' opinions, and that can't be done under a week. But for the importance of speed, I should have asked the Chairman to look at it as well. But the other director is in agreement with me on the main points. We agree that it is a distinguished piece of writing- that the fable is very skilfully handled, and that the narrative keeps one's interest on its own plane-and that is something very few authors have achieved since Gulliver. O1n the other hand, we have no con- viction (and I am sure none of the other directors would have) that this is the rigBht point of view from w'iich to criticise the political situation at the present time. It Is certainly the duty of any publishing firm which pretends to other interests and motives than mere commercial prosperity, to publish books which go against the cur- rent of tae moment: but in each instance that demands that at least one member of the firm should have the conviction that this is the thing that needs saying at ti MomenL I can't see any reason of pru- dence or caution to prevent anybody from publishing this book-if he believed in what it stands for. Now I think my own dissatisfaction with this apologue is that the effect is simply one of negation. It ought to excite some sym- p,athy with wbat the author wants, as well as sympathy with his objections to some thing: and the positive point of view, which I take to be generaly Troeskyite, is not con- vincing. I think you split your vote, with- out getting any compensating strong adhes- ion from either party-ie. those who criti- cise Pussian tendencies from the point of view of a purer communism, and those who, from a very different point of view, are alarmed about the future of small nations. And after all, your pigs are far more intell- gent than the other animals, and therefore the best qualified to run the farm-hin fact. there couldn't have been an Animal Farm at all without tiem: so that what was needed (someone might argue), was not more communism but more public-spirited pigs. I am very sorry, because whoever pub- lishes this, will naturally bave the oppor- tunity of publishing your future work: and I have a regard for your work, because it is good writing of fundamental integrity." Yours faithfully. t;arC OI 24 KUSSeU Square, W.C.1, Jan. 3. VALERIE ELIOT. T. S. ELIOT AND 'ANIMAL FARM': REASONS FOR REJECTION
