BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, 11 FEB. 1926
BRACERS 19751. ALS. McMaster
Edited by S. Turcon. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

<letterhead>
31 Sydney Street
London. S.W.3.1^, 2
11 Feb. 1926

My dear Colette

How amusing that St John Ervine said3 exactly the opposite of what I said. It shows how little criticisms are worth: but I stick to my view. I think emphatically that you ought to get your play published:4 I thought I had made that clear — It seems to me well worth it —

I should like awfully to see more than the opening paragraph of the novel you are writing.5 If it is not going to be finished just yet, I should like to have it in Cornwall — we go there on March 24 — as I have more leisure there. The address is CARN VOEL, PORTHCURNO, Penzance. I wonder how your village play6 went off!

John7 is quite recovered now — What lasted longest was the shock to his nerves — he had not known before that such a thing as bad pain existed. It made him unduly affectionate to his parents, and angelically good, which was worrying. But he is getting over that now. Poor little man, it was horrid to see terrors getting into him.

I loathe London and long for the sea and freedom of open stretches of country. We think of giving up London and living in Cornwall altogether — John and I always get ill here — How funny of Ervine to think you made too much of love — has he no knowledge of the world or of modern psychology? — John often asks after you and says he wants to go to tea with you again.

Yours
B.

• 1

  [document] Document 200758.

• 2

  [envelope] The Lady Constance Malleson | Blagdon | Somerset. Pmk: CHELSEA S.W.3 | 11. 45 PM | 11 FEB | 1926

• 3

  St John Ervine said According to Colette, both BR and Ervine picked up on the same two points in their comments on her play, but had differing opinions on them (20 Jan. 1926, BRACERS 113280). Saint John Greer Ervine (1883–1971) was an Irish playwright, novelist and critic.

• 4

  your play published  The Way was not published but was staged two years later by the Arts Theatre in London and reviewed in The Times on 26 March 1928. The best that the reviewer could call the play was “tolerable” and only for a few brief moments did it even reach that level. Colette blamed the disaster on Theodore Komisarjevsky (1882–1954), who had promised to produce it but was prevented from doing so (“Letters to Bertrand Russell from Constance Malleson, 1916–1969”, p. 8). The advertising leaflet with a blurb from BR promoting the play does list Komisarjevsky as the producer (Carrie Webster papers, RA, box 5.70). However, the programme indicates that the play was produced by Charles Carson who also acted in it (Box 6.74, file 14; also typescripts of the play). In her letter of 21 February 1928 (BRACERS 98476), Colette explains that Komisarjevsky wanted £100 to produce the play; she could not raise the funds and thus was producing the play herself. It is unclear if Carson was actually involved.

• 5

  the novel you are writing Colette’s first novel, The Coming Back, was not published until 1933.

• 6

  your village play She had written to BR that she was producing a play which she planned on touring around to the local hamlets (20 Jan. 1926, BRACERS 113280). The play was a Charles Hawtrey farce (Tony Staveacre, “The Lady of the Lake”, A History of Blagdon 4 [Feb. 2008]: 137–45).

• 7

  John John Conrad Russell, born 16 November 1921, to BR and his wife Dora.