until 1940, when it was universally panned. 7
14 North Side, Clapham Common, S.W.4 | Dec. 19 [1936]
Dear Hugh,
This is to wish you from both of us a cheerful Christmas. We are sending you a compilation which seems intelligent and amusing: forgive the thumbmarks on the jacket. We both wanted to read it before sending it.
Have you heard that I’ve got in with Korda. I had to write him an original film story in three weeks, for which he pays 175 down whether used or not. This runs to 12,000 words. I hear today all is O.K. Shooting to begin in Jan., so he now has to pay me a salary of 125 a week for 4 weeks to work on the film. With an option on my services for the same salary for 6 months. There is a typical Korda snag. The story is a fairly realistic low-life thriller about race gangs, the hero a stool-pigeon. Korda wishes me to write in a part for George Robey! 8
The other fly in the ointment is a libel action. I don’t know whether you remember the drunk party at Freetown in
Journey Without Maps
. I called the drunk, whose real name was quite different, Pa Oakley. It now turns out that there is a Dr P. D. Oakley, head of the Sierra Leone Medical Service. The book’s been withdrawn (luckily all but 200 copies have been sold), writs have been served, and he’s out for damages! Anxious days. 9 This and Korda are delaying my Mexican trip. I shan’t get out there now till the autumn.
I hope you have good news of Helga. We’re having Christmas at home, so Crowborough will be very quiet this year. How is Graham? 10
Love,
Graham
TO HUGH GREENE
14 North Side, Clapham Common, S.W.4 | Dec. 26 [1936]
Dear Hugh,
A thousand thanks for the Book Token. I collected a shelf-ful of books this Christmas. A very nice old edition of Gibbon in 12 volumes and the new Boswell from Vivien – oh and Bryant’s anthology of Restoration letters, Frost’s poems and Dylan Thomas’s, and
Rare Poems of the 17th Century
, and the
Letters of Byron
.
I’m thick in scenario. Medium Shots and Insert Shots and Flash backs and the rest of the racket. Korda, I’m glad to say, has given up the Robey idea and seems to be leaving us alone. Casting is proving very different. Menzies finds lovely people with appallingly tough faces, but when they open their mouths they all have Oxford accents.
[…]
TO THE EARL OF IDDESLEIGH
Night and Day
was one of the most impressive new magazines to appear in Britain between the wars. Writing to the Earl of Iddesleigh
(1901
–70) at the publisher Eyre & Spottiswoode, Greene names its prominent contributors and describes the audience it will appeal to
.
[Night and Day] 21st May, 1937
Dear Lord Iddesleigh,
I am writing as Literary Editor of a new weekly
Night and Day
which is to appear for the first time on July 1st. Among its regular contributors will be Peter Fleming, David Garnett, Adrian Bell, Theodora Benson and Anthony Powell. Modelled to some extent on
The New Yorker
, it will be addressed to a sophisticated and literary public, and although its main appeal will be humorous, a section of the paper will be devoted to serious criticisms. Evelyn Waugh willcontribute a page each week on recent books and another page will be given up to shorter notices.
I should be very glad, therefore, if you would add this paper to the list of those to which you regularly send your books for review.
Yours sincerely,
Graham Greene
The magazine folded after only six months. Already short of money, it was sued by the managers of the child-actor Shirley Temple over Greene’s observation in a film review
(28
October) that interest in her was exploitative: ‘Her admirers – middle-aged men and clergymen – respond to her dubious coquetry, to the sight of her well-shaped and desirable little body, packed with enormous vitality, only because the safety curtain of story and dialogue drops between their intelligence and their desire.’ The matter was settled on terms humiliating to Greene. 11 The Shirley
14 North Side, Clapham Common, S.W.4 | Dec. 19 [1936]
Dear Hugh,
This is to wish you from both of us a cheerful Christmas. We are sending you a compilation which seems intelligent and amusing: forgive the thumbmarks on the jacket. We both wanted to read it before sending it.
Have you heard that I’ve got in with Korda. I had to write him an original film story in three weeks, for which he pays 175 down whether used or not. This runs to 12,000 words. I hear today all is O.K. Shooting to begin in Jan., so he now has to pay me a salary of 125 a week for 4 weeks to work on the film. With an option on my services for the same salary for 6 months. There is a typical Korda snag. The story is a fairly realistic low-life thriller about race gangs, the hero a stool-pigeon. Korda wishes me to write in a part for George Robey! 8
The other fly in the ointment is a libel action. I don’t know whether you remember the drunk party at Freetown in
Journey Without Maps
. I called the drunk, whose real name was quite different, Pa Oakley. It now turns out that there is a Dr P. D. Oakley, head of the Sierra Leone Medical Service. The book’s been withdrawn (luckily all but 200 copies have been sold), writs have been served, and he’s out for damages! Anxious days. 9 This and Korda are delaying my Mexican trip. I shan’t get out there now till the autumn.
I hope you have good news of Helga. We’re having Christmas at home, so Crowborough will be very quiet this year. How is Graham? 10
Love,
Graham
TO HUGH GREENE
14 North Side, Clapham Common, S.W.4 | Dec. 26 [1936]
Dear Hugh,
A thousand thanks for the Book Token. I collected a shelf-ful of books this Christmas. A very nice old edition of Gibbon in 12 volumes and the new Boswell from Vivien – oh and Bryant’s anthology of Restoration letters, Frost’s poems and Dylan Thomas’s, and
Rare Poems of the 17th Century
, and the
Letters of Byron
.
I’m thick in scenario. Medium Shots and Insert Shots and Flash backs and the rest of the racket. Korda, I’m glad to say, has given up the Robey idea and seems to be leaving us alone. Casting is proving very different. Menzies finds lovely people with appallingly tough faces, but when they open their mouths they all have Oxford accents.
[…]
TO THE EARL OF IDDESLEIGH
Night and Day
was one of the most impressive new magazines to appear in Britain between the wars. Writing to the Earl of Iddesleigh
(1901
–70) at the publisher Eyre & Spottiswoode, Greene names its prominent contributors and describes the audience it will appeal to
.
[Night and Day] 21st May, 1937
Dear Lord Iddesleigh,
I am writing as Literary Editor of a new weekly
Night and Day
which is to appear for the first time on July 1st. Among its regular contributors will be Peter Fleming, David Garnett, Adrian Bell, Theodora Benson and Anthony Powell. Modelled to some extent on
The New Yorker
, it will be addressed to a sophisticated and literary public, and although its main appeal will be humorous, a section of the paper will be devoted to serious criticisms. Evelyn Waugh willcontribute a page each week on recent books and another page will be given up to shorter notices.
I should be very glad, therefore, if you would add this paper to the list of those to which you regularly send your books for review.
Yours sincerely,
Graham Greene
The magazine folded after only six months. Already short of money, it was sued by the managers of the child-actor Shirley Temple over Greene’s observation in a film review
(28
October) that interest in her was exploitative: ‘Her admirers – middle-aged men and clergymen – respond to her dubious coquetry, to the sight of her well-shaped and desirable little body, packed with enormous vitality, only because the safety curtain of story and dialogue drops between their intelligence and their desire.’ The matter was settled on terms humiliating to Greene. 11 The Shirley
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