in 1928, I shall be only about 300 miles from H.! I’ve just turned in the film treatment of the Galsworthy to Basil Dean. I expect we shall argue about it this coming week and then I’ll have to set to work on the shooting script, a thing I’ve never done before. Every camera angle has to be described, each angle being a scene, the average film having about 550 scenes. A long business. I find it very tiring, as you have to visualise exactly the whole time, not merely what the person is doing, but from what angle you watch him doing it. Vivien is very well, except for a nasty stye, and Dr Pink is pleased with her. Can you let us know how one sets about national insurance for a foreign maid?
A Gun
seems to have been doing pretty well. 1 I’m trying to follow up with another thriller, scene to be set at Brighton.
Our love to both of you,
Graham
TO R. K. NARAYAN
North Side, Clapham Common, S.W.4 [September 1936]
Dear Narayan,
A hasty line to say that I have placed a second story for you with
The Spectator:
‘Gandhi’s Meeting.’ 2 Today I forwarded you a cheque from
The Spectator
by airmail for the first story. A copy of the paper went off to you a week ago. I feel sure your luck has turned now. Ispoke to David Higham 3 to-day on the phone about your book & asked him to arrange for payment to be made on signing the contract – so as not to wait for publication. I have to write a preface of a thousand words, & I would welcome any information from you: your age, etc. Your other short stories are now in the agent’s hands. Did you ever hear from
New Stories
or receive a copy of the paper containing the story they printed – or at any rate accepted?
Hamilton tells me that he only sold 230 copies of ‘Swami’. Never mind: I think it is quite possible that we shall see this book revived.
[…]
TO HUGH GREENE
14 North Side, Clapham Common, S.W.4 | Oct. 31 [1936]
Dear Hugh,
I should dearly love to come, but I don’t think it can be managed – either from the point of view of work or finance. These bloody boils have been going on for more than two months, four days in seven painfully, & one has no certain feeling that one day they will stop. At the moment I have them on me, all just broken – the lip, the thigh & the scrotum – so they’ve ceased to hurt.
I may have to decide between Mexico & the literary editorship of a new paper – if it gets all its finances by Christmas. A horrid decision. I’d much rather have Mexico, but the L.E. would be worth £600 a year.
I have to decide too between buying this house or leaving next year: the lease won’t be renewed.
I had to see Hitchcock the other day about possible work for G. B. A silly harmless clown. I shuddered at the things he told me he was doing to Conrad’s
Secret Agent. 4
The baby is crying, & I have ten books accumulated for review & this damned thriller to write.
I have broken with Doubleday’s more or less, & have tried to buy back from them, without success,
Journey Without Maps
, which the Viking Press offered to take on. They, the V.P., are going to have my next book anyway, though D’s keep on sending anxious cables.
Auden’s new book of poems (I haven’t had time to read it yet) looks very good. 5
I had a painful purgatorial lunch yday with Grigson, Spender & Rosamond Lehmann, my mind clouded with aspirins. I hadn’t met S. before: he struck me as having too much human kindness. A little soft. 6
Love,
Graham
TO HUGH GREENE
In his reviews, Graham savaged the films of Alexander Korda
(1893
–1956), who decided to deal with his harshest critic by hiring him as a writer, so in late
1936
they began a close, if unlikely, friendship. Greene wrote the original story and scenario for
The Green Cockatoo
, an initial foray into the world of homicidal racetrack gangs that would provide the material for
Brighton Rock
. This film, directed by William Cameron Menzies, with John Mills in the lead, was not actually released
A Gun
seems to have been doing pretty well. 1 I’m trying to follow up with another thriller, scene to be set at Brighton.
Our love to both of you,
Graham
TO R. K. NARAYAN
North Side, Clapham Common, S.W.4 [September 1936]
Dear Narayan,
A hasty line to say that I have placed a second story for you with
The Spectator:
‘Gandhi’s Meeting.’ 2 Today I forwarded you a cheque from
The Spectator
by airmail for the first story. A copy of the paper went off to you a week ago. I feel sure your luck has turned now. Ispoke to David Higham 3 to-day on the phone about your book & asked him to arrange for payment to be made on signing the contract – so as not to wait for publication. I have to write a preface of a thousand words, & I would welcome any information from you: your age, etc. Your other short stories are now in the agent’s hands. Did you ever hear from
New Stories
or receive a copy of the paper containing the story they printed – or at any rate accepted?
Hamilton tells me that he only sold 230 copies of ‘Swami’. Never mind: I think it is quite possible that we shall see this book revived.
[…]
TO HUGH GREENE
14 North Side, Clapham Common, S.W.4 | Oct. 31 [1936]
Dear Hugh,
I should dearly love to come, but I don’t think it can be managed – either from the point of view of work or finance. These bloody boils have been going on for more than two months, four days in seven painfully, & one has no certain feeling that one day they will stop. At the moment I have them on me, all just broken – the lip, the thigh & the scrotum – so they’ve ceased to hurt.
I may have to decide between Mexico & the literary editorship of a new paper – if it gets all its finances by Christmas. A horrid decision. I’d much rather have Mexico, but the L.E. would be worth £600 a year.
I have to decide too between buying this house or leaving next year: the lease won’t be renewed.
I had to see Hitchcock the other day about possible work for G. B. A silly harmless clown. I shuddered at the things he told me he was doing to Conrad’s
Secret Agent. 4
The baby is crying, & I have ten books accumulated for review & this damned thriller to write.
I have broken with Doubleday’s more or less, & have tried to buy back from them, without success,
Journey Without Maps
, which the Viking Press offered to take on. They, the V.P., are going to have my next book anyway, though D’s keep on sending anxious cables.
Auden’s new book of poems (I haven’t had time to read it yet) looks very good. 5
I had a painful purgatorial lunch yday with Grigson, Spender & Rosamond Lehmann, my mind clouded with aspirins. I hadn’t met S. before: he struck me as having too much human kindness. A little soft. 6
Love,
Graham
TO HUGH GREENE
In his reviews, Graham savaged the films of Alexander Korda
(1893
–1956), who decided to deal with his harshest critic by hiring him as a writer, so in late
1936
they began a close, if unlikely, friendship. Greene wrote the original story and scenario for
The Green Cockatoo
, an initial foray into the world of homicidal racetrack gangs that would provide the material for
Brighton Rock
. This film, directed by William Cameron Menzies, with John Mills in the lead, was not actually released
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