[‘Heinemann do not hope to make a lot of money out of me’: Olivia Manning, novelist.] Two Autograph Letters Signed to ‘Mr. Degenhardt’, regarding his review of her second novel, and approaching the BBC regarding his work on Goethe.

Author: 
Olivia Manning [married name Olivia Mary Smith] (1908-1980), English novelist [A. H. Degenhardt]
Manning
Publication details: 
15 and 22 May 1949; the first from 106 Baker Street, W1 [London], the second from the Unicorn Hotel, Stow-in-the-Wold, Gloucestershire.
£250.00
SKU: 24150

See her entry in the Oxford DNB. The letters concern Manning’s second novel, ‘Artist among the Missing’ (1949). Both in fair condition, on lightly aged and spotted paper. Both 2pp, 12mo, and both signed ‘Olivia Manning’. ONE (15 May 1949): Twenty-four lines of text. She thanks him for his review of her book in the Hendford Herald: ‘I feel you have understood the point & purpose of the book a great deal more deeply than most of the regular reviewers who dealt with it for the literary weeklies’. She cannot however ‘complain of my press, which has been exceptionally good, but only a few of the most perceptive of the critics have made the points that you make in the first two paragraphs of your review’. She asks if he has himself ‘experienced something of this sort of neurosis’ There follow references to ‘Vera’ and ‘Enid’. She would like to ‘get hold of’ anything he may have written. TWO (22 May 1949): She was ‘extremely interested’ to read his article in ‘The Optician’, ‘especially as Dr. Inman, whom my mother used often to consult, appears most surprisingly as an authority. It is the old story of the prophet being without honour in his own country’. Her husband (the BBC producer and Soviet agent Reggie Smith) thinks that as he has been ‘working on Goethe’, he should offer to the B.B.C. - 'Mrs. Kallin of the 3rd Programme Talks Dept. would be the person to approach. They are, of course, looking for a good deal of Goethe material at the moment.’ She is sorry to report that there is ‘little chance of my book being advertised again. Heinemann do not hope to make a lot of money out of me, so do not want to spend much.’ See image.