‘It could disappear for ever’: Anger over sale of George Orwell archive
Businesses are selling off priceless documents piecemeal, after publisher gave the order to ‘get rid of’ them.
George Orwell’s archives provide an invaluable insight into one of the most influential British writers of the 20th century, casting light on how he produced his most memorable books, his sensitivity to criticism, and his fears that legal threats could ruin his work. Now the treasure trove that is the extensive archive of correspondence and contracts amassed by Orwell’s original publisher, Victor Gollancz, could be scattered to the winds in what has been described as an act of “cultural vandalism”.
Crucial correspondence involving the Nineteen Eighty-Four author and Observer correspondent is being offered for sale on the open market, following a decision in 2018 by the publisher’s parent company to sell the archive because the warehouse was closing.
Richard Blair, 80 – whose father Eric Blair wrote under the pen-name George Orwell – is dismayed by the loss: “It’s terribly sad … Once Gollancz material is acquired by private collectors, it could disappear into the ether for ever.”
For £75,000, Peter Harrington, a leading antiquarian bookseller, is currently offering Gollancz papers relating to Orwell’s second novel, A Clergyman’s Daughter. They include his original contract, a letter with his corrections, and a 1934 report by Gerald Gould – then fiction editor of the Observer and a Gollancz manuscript reader – stating that it should be published.
Harrington is also selling letters for £50,000 relating to Orwell’s third novel, Keep the Aspidistra Flying, which show that libel concerns led to key alterations in the final text. In 1936, dismayed by Gollancz’s desired changes, Orwell wrote that he would nevertheless do what he could to meet his publisher’s demands – “short of ruining the book altogether”.
Victor Gollancz in 1959.
For £35,000, Jonkers Rare Books, another prominent bookseller, is selling papers relating to The Road to Wigan Pier, Orwell’s classic study of industrial poverty in the north of England. It includes a long letter to Gollancz denying accusations that he was a middle-class snob, asking him to intervene and threatening legal action against his detractors.
Documents relating to A Clergyman’s Daughter include Orwell’s letter clarifying that none of the characters could be linked to any persons living. Correspondence about Animal Farm records Gollancz’s famous rejection of the classic anti-totalitarian fable first published in 1945, due to the pro-Soviet political environment created by the second world war. Orwell wrote: “I must tell you that it is I think completely unacceptable politically from your point of view (it is anti-Stalin).” Gollancz initially took issue with the notion that he was beholden to the Stalinist line but, after reading the manuscript, wrote on 4 April 1944: “You were right and I was wrong. I am so sorry. I have returned the manuscript.”
Victor Gollancz founded one of the most influential publishing houses of the 20th century. The company was acquired by the Orion Group, which became part of Hachette, owned by the French multinational Lagardère.
Rick Gekoski, a leading antiquarian bookseller, was asked to dispose of the archive, which included correspondence with Kingsley Amis and Daphne du Maurier, among other Gollancz authors. Last week, he dismissed criticisms of the disposal as “misguided”, saying: “The whole thing was sanctioned by Malcolm Edwards, publishing director of Orion, and it was sold at the request of the board.” In Gekoski’s 2021 book Guarded by Dragons, he wrote: “No one on the Orion board cared where they went, or to whom.”
He recalled a warehouse full of tens of thousands of volumes as well as dozens of filing cabinets – “rusty and dusty, stuffed with all of the production, editorial and rights files of Gollancz publishers, the vast majority unopened for perhaps 50 years”.
After he tried in vain to sell the entire archive to various institutions for around £1m, it was divided up between dozens of dealers, private collectors and libraries: “All the board asked us to do was to get rid of as much material as possible… and the rest… had to be thrown away.”
Jean Seaton, director of the Orwell Foundation, said: “That nobody had opened those filing cabinets for 50 years was because they were idiots and didn’t understand the archive’s value. Why didn’t their board consult experts and historians, who would have understood that they needed perhaps to make some revenue from it, but would have understood the real public worth? Instead, they have dispersed a national archive.”
The Orwell biographer DJ Taylor recalled that, when he and the Orwell Foundation discovered that the Gollancz archive was being sold, they tried to raise money: “We couldn’t because these were very valuable documents. We were worried of course that the archive would simply be sold off piecemeal.”
He added that the publisher’s handling of its “incredibly valuable” archive had always been “amateurish”. He recalled lax security when he was working on his first Orwell book 23 years ago. “I remember once coming into the office, and they went ‘oh, where’s it gone?’ A box containing Orwell’s letters to Victor Gollancz had just gone awol somewhere in the building,” he said.
Bill Hamilton, a literary agent at AM Heath and executor of Orwell’s estate, said: “The archiving of literary material is just not something that commercial publishers think about particularly, which is kind of ironic.”
He observed that most authors are today “keenly aware of what role their archive has in their literary heritage”. The late Wolf Hall author Hilary Mantel, for example, sent her papers to the Huntington Library in America.
Liz Thomson, who reported on the book trade for 35 years, described the sell-off as “cultural vandalism”: “Britain’s cultural heritage was going cheap via second-hand booksellers… What hope for future biographers and historians?”
She singled out Gollancz’s Animal Farm correspondence – sold by Jonkers with an asking-price of £100,000 – which included Orwell’s 1944 letter describing it as “a little fairy story… with a political meaning” and the publisher’s rejection. “Gollancz refused to publish the novel because he feared it would upset Anglo-Soviet relations… The archive is priceless,” Thomson said.
The publisher’s disposal contrasts with Richard Blair’s efforts to maintain an archive of the writer’s correspondence. In 2021, he bought 50 letters so that he could donate them to the Orwell Archive at University College London, fearing that they would otherwise have gone on to the market and be “never seen again”.
Pom Harrington, son of Harrington’s founder, said: “Of course, it would be lovely if institutions can step up to acquire these unique materials. It’s not reasonable for them to expect it to be given to them.” Christiaan Jonkers, founder of Jonkers Rare Books, said: “There wouldn’t be nearly as much of this sort of material made available if people like us weren’t enabling the process. Even something as monumental as this Orwell archive might simply be thrown out were it not for the market.”
Hachette declined to comment.
▻https://www.theguardian.com/books/article/2024/aug/17/it-could-disappear-for-ever-anger-over-sale-of-george-orwell-archive
