Collected Letters Volume Three: Narnia, Cambridge and Joy 1950–1963. Walter Hooper

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СКАЧАТЬ a W. Chambers book.²⁷¹ It’s better not to send the book. They all get lost in the pile on my table.

      Yours sincerely, with love to all,

      C. S. Lewis

      

       TO HARRY BLAMIRES (BOD):

      Magdalen College,

      Oxford. 26 xi 52

      Dear Blamires

Yes, I did of course write to Edinburgh and did my best.²⁷² I was much hampered by the fact that my questioner laid great stress on practical ability as a teacher, and of course I could not pretend to have any first hand evidence to give on that. I am sorry the Philistines have won: but am sure you will not allow yourself to be too set down about it. All good wishes,

      Yours

      C. S. Lewis

      

       TO GEOFFREY BLES (BOD):

      Magdalen College,

      Oxford. 26. xi. 1952

      My dear Bles

Thanks for American M.C.²⁷³ and for reviews of D.T.²⁷⁴ No, I shan’t need any more copies of the former, so pray dispose of them as you think fit. No one, not even the artist, liked the Church Times picture.²⁷⁵ The Torso is not at all imminent:²⁷⁶ I’m very busy with ordinary work these days. All greetings.

      Yours

      C. S. Lewis

      

       TO WILLIAM BORST (P):

      Magdalen College,

      Oxford 28.xi.52

      Dear Borst–

      The copy has not yet come to hand but I have your letter of the 19th and I’m afraid the position is this. You can have a little more headnote (but not a statement what each passage ‘illustrates’–it is 50 bad for the students) and as many more glosses as you like: but you can’t have from me any drastic revision of the Selections. For one thing I have not now the leisure: but for another, I can’t have what is really Mr. Harrison’s Selections going under my name.

      If you press for such a revision then I will make what seems to me a handsome offer. I will be content with 500 dollars for my introduction and for giving you my selections & glosses as a basis for someone else’s work. You will save money, for you needn’t get an expensive man to do you the kind of Selections you now want. It is work for any intelligent student. For my Selections were quite a different thing. With labour of which you have no conception I quarried a little F.Q. out of the great F.Q.: reproducing its real characteristics. Of course this involved omitting (within individual selections) stanzas that could be spared: and leaving the first appearances of characters as unprepared as S. leaves them: and being ‘tantalising’ as S. is tantalising: and omitting some (v. few) of the dear old Show-pieces. You have almost sensed what I was at: I don’t think Mr. Harrison has. And the result on you is v. significant. You now want more Spenser than you allowed me at first. Why? if not that the thing is acting on you as I hoped it wd. act on the students? If I’d simply chucked all the dear old favourites together in the old way you’d have taken them without a murmur and never asked for more.

      As I say, you are quite free to get someone else (and, between ourselves, you need get only a hack). Yet I can’t help hoping you’ll keep my Selections: not for my sake (I shd. not be piqued and I can manage without the other 500 dollars) but for Spenser’s. Arrogant tho’ it may sound I can’t help saying ‘Borst, you know not what you do: let well alone. You’ve got here a new thing, a thing which will whet the students’ appetite as it whets yours. Think twice before throwing it away in favour of one more “specimens of Spenser” such as everyone has done, and no one enjoyed.’

Mr. Harrison is mistaken in thinking that Serena was a foundling of noble birth.²⁷⁷ S. does (emphatically) identify RCK²⁷⁸ and St George (I x. lxi.).²⁷⁹

      Yours

      C. S. Lewis

      

       TO I. O. EVANS (W):

      Magdalen College

      Oxford 28. xi. 52

      Dear Evans

Thank you for The Space Serpent which I have read and return.²⁸⁰ Most interesting idea—and I fear I wd. never have noticed your ‘howler’ if you hadn’t warned me. But then, as you know, my interest in ‘science-fiction’ puts the emphasis entirely on the fiction end. I must re-read that excellent book Kipps,²⁸¹ and thanks you for reminding me of it. How tragically Wells decayed in his later work! With all good wishes.

      Yours

      C. S. Lewis

      

       TO ALAN AND NELL BERNERS-PRICE (W):

      Magdalen College,

      Oxford. Dec 2nd 1952

      Dear Alan and Nell

      I was going to write to you shortly (I mean ‘in a short time’, how difficult the English language is!) when your card came. I am sending off under separate cover my last story to your little girl. At least I hope that’s what the neat packet contains: I daren’t open it to see because I’m so bad at parcels that I’d never get it put up again nicely if I did. I’m afraid it is a poor gift compared with the chinchilla (is that how you spell it?) coat.

      I’m afraid I haven’t a chance to get down to dear Court Stairs this vacation, though it is just the weather for the South Coast and I shd. love to join your merry circle round the fire. Is the old gentleman with the strong views still there? Your garden must look lovely in the snow.

      I hope Nell has quite got over the impact of ‘my wife’ by now and that it is all sinking away from both of you, as it is for me, into the status of a dream—even a funny dream. All the same, however she may deserve it, I don’t enjoy remembering every now & then that she is still in jail. Well, dear friends, a merry Christmas and a happy New Year to you both.

      Yours

      Jack

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