Letter 32
BR VIA FRANK RUSSELL TO GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD., 4 JULY 1918
BRACERS 48710. TLS. Reading
Previous Brixton letter, BRACERS 18679; next letter, BRACERS 19318
Edited by K. Blackwell, A. Bone, N. Griffin and S. Turcon

<letterhead>1
57 GORDON SQUARE,
LONDON, W. C. 1.
4 July 1918.

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

Dear Sirs,

Mr. Bertrand Russell says you are to have the contract with Lippincott,2 and we are at present searching for it here but have not yet found it. He quite agrees that you ought to get 10% on the negotiations. He says he will do the index to Roads to Freedom3 himself, so perhaps you could post a copy of the proofs direct to him at the prison for that purpose. You simply address it to Brixton Prison. S.W. 2.

Mr Russell gave me the following message at the prison yesterday — “He is particularly anxious that the publication here should not in any event be delayed, and he says if you are legally free to proceed you might publish here; when the American copyright would lapse, then the Lippincott rights would cease, and the Century4 Company if willing to publish would also be willing to pay Royalties. At any rate willingness to adopt this course can be used to make Lippincott reasonable. Do not on any account delay publication here.”

He also handed me the Notice5 you wanted for the purpose of announcement for the other new book.

Yours faithfully,
Russell

Encl.

• 1

  [document] The letter was edited from the Russell Archives’ photocopy of the typed, single-sheet, signed original in the Allen & Unwin archive at the University of Reading.

• 2

  contract with Lippincott Despite efforts by Frank and suggestions from BR, the contract could not be located among the latter’s papers at Gordon Square. However, a typed carbon copy, with seals, is in the Russell Archives (BRACERS 70492) and is dated 11 October 1917.

• 3

  index to Roads to Freedom By 8 July 1918 (Letter 34) BR had sent his index to Unwin. A Russellian index may have humorous entries: this one includes “Chewing-gum” and “Button-hooks”.

• 4

  Lippincott … Century To replace Lippincott, BR favoured Century, the publisher of Why Men Fight (1917), the American edition of Principles of Social Reconstruction (1916). This publisher, having commissioned the book, declined to publish it in wartime after seeing the typescript.

• 5

  the Notice The “other new book” was Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy, now completed in manuscript and awaiting typing by Miss Kyle. The “notice”, blurb, or descriptive paragraph (Frank Russell used the latter term in a letter of 22 June 1918 to Unwin, BRACERS 48707), is taken from the original dust-jacket: “This book is intended for those who have no previous acquaintance with the topics of which it treats, and no more knowledge of mathematics than can be acquired at a primary school or even at Eton. It sets forth in elementary form the logical definition of number, the analysis of the notion of order, the modern doctrine of the infinite, and the theory of descriptions and classes as symbolic fictions. The more controversial and uncertain aspects of the subject are subordinated to those which can by now be regarded as acquired scientific knowledge. These are explained without the use of symbols, but in such a way as to give readers a general understanding of the methods and purposes of mathematical logic, which, it is hoped, will be of interest not only to those who wish to proceed to a more serious study of the subject, but also to that wider circle who feel a desire to know the bearings of this important modern science.” The book was published in March 1919 by Allen & Unwin.