BR TO ALLEN AND UNWIN, 31 MAY 1946
BRACERS 48057. TLS(X). George Allen and Unwin Ltd.
Proofread by K. Blackwell

Trinity College
Cambridge.
31 May, 1946.

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

Dear Sirs,

I am much distressed to learn that The First Europe, by Delisle Burns,1 which I had the pleasure of reading in proof three years ago, is still unpublished owing to lack of paper. It is, in my opinion, a very important book dealing with an obscure and little known period of history, of which the formative importance in relation to subsequent European institutions has been quite inadequately appreciated. Having been engaged in a history of Philosophy which compelled me to make some study of the Middle Ages, I found Delisle Burns’s book more helpful than any other that I know of. It is very unfortunate that so important a book, and one showing British scholarship in so favourable a light, should remain unavailable. Would it be possible to get a grant from the Moberly Pool to supplement your ration of paper? When I consider how much that is totally worthless is printed every day, I cannot but feel somewhat indignant that the authorities should render impossible the publication of a work of first rate historical research.

Yours faithfully,
<signed> Bertrand Russell.

• 1

  The First Europe, by Delisle Burns This letter was written at Unwin’s suggestion on 29 May (record 49671). The First Europe was not published until 1947. Russell reviewed it on the BBC on 3 March 1948 (the ms. is at RA1 220.018250; published as 41 in Collected Papers 25).