Letters of T. S. Eliot, Volume 7 by T.S. Eliot

Author:T.S. Eliot [T. S. Eliot]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780571316373
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 2017-03-17T04:00:00+00:00

TO Geoffrey Faber

TS Faber

10 January 1935

Faber & Faber Ltd

Dear Geoffrey,

I have just had a letter from Charles Harris, that is, Prebendary Harris of Hereford, who is Chairman of the Book Committee of the Church Literature Association of which I am Secretary. Amongst other subjects he raises the question of our publishing from time to time any books produced under the auspices of the C.L.A. for which a wider public is desired than that accessible through the S.P.C.K.

Hitherto all the books which the C.L.A. (which is really a department of the Church Union) has sponsored have been published by the S.P.C.K. The arrangement has usually, and, so far as I know, always been that the C.L.A. and the S.P.C.K. go half and half in sharing the costs and in taking the profits.

I don’t know whether Harris has at the moment any particular books in mind, though he speaks of being still uncertain to what publisher to take the book on Convocation. (You will probably remember that this was a book in which he expected to get some collaboration with Lord Hugh Cecil, and which has been mentioned at Book Committees.)1 Obviously each book would have to be considered on its own merits. I don’t know whether you would consider an arrangement similar to that with the S.P.C.K. good enough, but there is nothing immutable about this arrangement. The chief point in my mind is whether we should care for the appearance of being so closely associated with any one church organisation as that. It might not matter once every two years or so, but I should doubt its advisability in general.

I don’t know whether that would be a vital matter to the Church Union, and I think that probably there would be books which the C.L.A. would like to back, but without having their name connected with. I should like to know what you think of the notion in general. The only other publisher on my Committee is J. G. Lockhart,2 which means that if we did not take such books they would go to Bles or to the Centenary Press. I have a feeling that Harris and Lowther Clarke, who are the only people who really count on the Committee, would much rather work with us than with Bles, as being a firm of much greater prestige.

Also, I want to tell you that Harris thinks that your scheme for a Child’s Companion to the Prayer Book is a very good one, and agrees that it is a project for a general publisher, certainly not for any particular church organisation. I think that he might be able to suggest a few names of people who could do such a book without giving it any pronounced bias one way or another.3

Yours ever,

T. S. E.

1 – Harris, ‘Convocation: its past, present and future’ (unpublished).

2– J. G. Lockhart was a Director of the Centenary Press, London. TSE contributed ‘Religion and Literature’ to Faith that Illuminates, ed. V. A. Demant (Centenary Press, 1935), 29–54.

3– GCF replied, 13 Jan.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.