DL/A-Z//MASCHLER T/2 - [Correspondence with Tom Maschler: 1980-1984]

DL/A-Z//MASCHLER T/2

Sub-file

[Correspondence with Tom Maschler: 1980-1984]

11/07/1980-20/12/1983

10 Letters (typescript and MS)

Knopf, Alfred A.,

Davies, Hunter

Maschler, Tom

[1980]

008 is a letter from Tom Maschler to Carol Brown Janeway of Alfred A Knopf publishers, offering to publish an edition of Kalila and Dimna in the United Kingdom, and discussing price and production costs.

[1981]

009 is a photocopy of a letter from Maschler to journalist Hunter Davies, explaining that he will ask Doris Lessing a question about the Booker prize but that Davies should not expect a positive response. Maschler elucidates Lessing's suspicious attitudes towards the press. He states that to be questioned about the Booker prize "irritates" Lessing and she regards journalists' demands as a "trick". "I am on your side. But that does not prevent me from respecting her wishes."

010 is a letter from Lessing to Davies, responding to the Booker prize controversy. She states that she did not say she would consider personal questions about the Booker prize to be "banal, irritating and a trick"; this, she states Maschler said [see 009]. "This comment is stupid and paranoid and I don't think in this way." She explains that her books are not supposed to be entered into the Booker prize, because she thinks it is "unfair" for established authors to enter; however, she has been led to believe that some of her books have been shortlisted. She asks Davies to tell her what he knows about this.

011 is a letter from Davies to Lessing, explaining the situation of his correspondence with Maschler and enclosing Maschler's letter [009] from which the quotes regarding the Booker were drawn. He explains that he thought the quotes were clearly attributed to Lessing's publisher, not Lessing herself, and attempts to calm the situation generally.

012 is a letter from Maschler to Lessing, apologising that Lessing's books Shikasta and The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four and Five were submitted for the Booker prize, and stating that no other books of hers will be submitted."There are of course some prizes which do not call for submission, and are therefore outside anyone's control."

[1982]

013 is a letter from Lessing to Maschler, complaining about some edits made to the preface of an unnamed work, and that Maschler failed to warn Lessing that she might become the centre of another controversy [about the Booker prize?] by speaking unwisely in front of a journalist. She states that she wants to be very careful, and that she wants Maschler to be very careful too.

014, 015 and 016 are partially dated handwritten letters from Maschler to Lessing, written while on holiday or retreat in France. Maschler refers to Lessing's [unnamed] opera, recounts a story about raising pigeons, and praises Lessing's "The Real Thing" and "Debbie and Julie".

[1983]

017 is a letter from Maschler to Lessing, enclosing correspondence between Maschler and Michel Chodkiewicz and Ann Frejer of Editions du Seuil, which is refusing to commit to print The Syrian Experiments and The Making of the Representative for Planet 8. Chodkiewicz's letter to Maschler is in French. Maschler's reply to Chodkiewicz attempts to persuade him to print the books, in exchange for a renegotiation of the advances. His letter to Frejer regrets that she has failed to call him back. In his letter to Lessing, Maschler declares that the issue is "AN OUTRAGE".