ENPages
page_0001
Private Stocks Cottage Tring (till April 16)
34, QUEEN'S GATE GARDENS, S.W.7.
31 March 20
My dear John
I am venturing to bombard you as a publisher a thing I have never done before!
I don't know whether you happen to have read my two articles, on Fox a few weeks ago and on Grey last week in the Times Supplement. Civil things
[on side of page] of course you will return enclosed.
page_0002
have been said of them to me but I am of course old enough to be aware how little importance is to be attached to such civilities; and still more to know that a pretty wide gulf separates very good newspaper stuff from matter of permanent interest in book form.
Yet I confess that the idea
page_0003
has come into my mind of asking you, as both publisher and friend, two questions. Would there be any chance of a volume of political articles of this sort selected from those I have written to the Times having any sale: this to the publisher: and this to the friend: should I, in your opinion, be making a mistake and doing myself
page_0004
an injury, by reprinting them, even if I found you or any other publisher willing to consider taking them on?
I enclose a few specimens. There are a good many others; 2 or 3 on Disraeli, Chatham, Charles James Fox etc etc. Political Prophecies
Will you glance at them at your leisure and send me your verdict? There is no hurry. I have not
page_0005
mentioned the idea even to Mr [ST: Bruce] Richmond: indeed to no one at all except yourself. I am honestly very doubtful indeed whether such reprints are worth while; and I have only got as far as thinking it might be worth while asking your opinion - I hope you wont think me a bore. I shall value yr opinion in a matter of this kind more than anyone's and I hope it won't take you much time to form it.
We are just off to Stocks
