BR TO CONSTANCE MALLESON, 20 AUG. 1941
BRACERS 19812. ALS. McMaster
Edited by S. Turcon. Reviewed by K. Blackwell

<letterhead>
Little Datchet Farm
Malvern, R. D. 1
Pennsylvania1
20 August 1941

Dearest Colette

I have written you a letter today,2 in answer to the second one from Sweden.3 This one is in answer to the last,4 when you arrived from Finland.

I wrote to Miss Pearn,5 but I don’t know what will come of it. If you are ever stranded as regards money, I could probably send you some. If you have enough left to cable, I could cable the money. We are all liable to be short in these days, but I get a substantial sum on the 15th of every month, so I could manage it except just before some 15th. My address for cables is

Chester Springs 2661
Phoenixville, Pennsylvania.

I am very glad your book is in England.6 It would have been a good thing if I could have handled American publication, as anything Miss Pearn gets will be swallowed up in England. If you write anything suitable for magazines, or another book, send it direct to me, not through anybody in England. An article on sentiment in Sweden could perhaps be printed in Nation or New Republic.

I can’t write a host of things I should like to say — I hope you will imagine what I feel about your enforced travels.7 Nothing has been cut out by the censor in any letter I have had from you.

This letter is about business — in the other that I wrote today I said what I could of other things.

All well with us. Very much love.

Your
Bertrand Russell.

• 1

  [document] Document 200818.

• 2

  written you a letter today BR wrote her two letters on 20 August, this one and BRACERS 19813.

• 3

  in answer to the second one from Sweden Her letter of August 1st (BRACERS 98435).

• 4

  in answer to the last Her letter of 8 July 1941 (BRACERS 98434).

• 5

  Miss Pearn In her letter of 8 July 1941 (BRACERS 98434), Colette asked him to contact Nancy Pearn of Pearn, Pollinger and Higham, to see if Pearn was trying to arrange for publication of her book in the United States. BR had dealt with Pearn as a literary agent in 1931.

• 6

  your book is in England Colette had written from Stockholm on 8 July (BRACERS 98434) that her book was safe with Cape in London. It is unclear what book this was. Possibly it was a different version of “Rust Red”, which was about Sweden. The copy of it that remains in her papers was typed in England by Alex. McLachlan, Literary Typing Specialist, St. Leonards on Sea. She had had a great deal of trouble getting the book to England. In her letter of 1 January (BRACERS 98430) she had written that a large part of the book manuscript she had sent Jonathan Cape had not reached the publisher. On 18 February (BRACERS 98431) she wrote that the manuscript had been with the Finnish Foreign Office for 5 months who had then returned it to her. She had sent Cape instructions that the last chapter was to be sent to BR for his approval and alterations, if any were needed. Parts of “Rust Red” appeared in her In the North, which was not published until 1946 by Gollancz.

• 7

  your enforced travels Colette decided to leave Finland in June reasoning that she could not be a financial burden on the country which was now at war with Soviet Russia (In the North [London: Gollancz, 1946], p. 187). There were frequent air raids once she arrived in Helsinki from her home in Vehmersalni.