47454

BRACERS Record Detail

To access the original letter, email the Ready Division.

Collection code 
RA3
Class no. 
Recent acquisition no. 
70
Document no. 
.
Box no. 
6.41
Source if not BR 

George Allen and Unwin Ltd.

Recipient(s) 
Allen and Unwin
Sender(s) 
BR
Date 
1918/06/10
Enclosures/References 
Form of letter 
ALS
Pieces 
1
BR's address code (if sender) 
LBP
Notes, topics or text 

BR uses LGS letterhead here, but his true address is Brixton Prison; also for documents .0047455-.0047456. The governor of Brixton's initials ("C.H.") are on the letter.

Transcription 

Letter 16
BR TO GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD., 10 JUNE 1918

BRACERS 47454. ALS. Reading
Previous Brixton letter, BRACERS 46919; next letter, BRACERS 19314
Edited by Kenneth Blackwell, Andrew G. Bone, Nicholas Griffin and Sheila Turcon


57 GORDON SQUARE,1
LONDON, W.C.
<Brixton Prison>
10 June 1918

Messrs Allen & Unwin
40 Museum Street
W.C.1

Gentlemen

I have read this MS.2 and am of opinion that it is quite worth publishing. It is very amusing, and at the same time by no means uninstructive.

Mr Jourdain knows very thoroughly the subjects which he is here treating lightly.

Yours very truly,
Bertrand Russell

 

Notes

  • 1.

    [document] The letter was edited from a photocopy in the Russell Archives of the signed, single-sheet original in BR’s hand in the George Allen & Unwin archives at Reading University. The letter has the Governor’s initials, “CH”.

  • 2.

    this MS. Of P.E.B. Jourdain’s The Philosophy of Mr. B*rtr*nd R*ss*ll with an Appendix of Leading Passages (London: Allen & Unwin, 1918). The book has two characters, the quasi-fictional B*rtr*nd R*ss*ll and his “distinguished contemporary” (p. 3), BR himself. The Editor’s Note goes on. The former, R*ss*ll, was torn to pieces by anti-suffragists in 1911. However — and shades of BR’s 1916 dismissal from Trinity College and even his 1918 imprisonment — R*ss*ll “had been forbidden to lecture on philosophy or mathematics by some well-intentioned advocates of freedom in speech who thought that the cause of freedom might be endangered by allowing Mr. R*ss*ll to speak freely on points of logic, on the grounds, apparently, that logic is both harmful and unnecessary and might be applied to politics unless strong measures were taken for its suppression. On much the same grounds his liberty was taken from him …” (p. 4).

Filed 
Russell letter no. 
Permission 
Everyone
Thread 
Reel no. 
Frame no. 
Record no. 
47454
Image 
BR to Allen and Unwin, 1918/06/10
Transcription Public Access 
Yes
Record created 2009/09/04
Record last modified 2022/10/03
Created/last modified by duncana