BRACERS Record Detail for 58190
To access the original letter, email the Russell Archives.
The letter was for sale by Gerard A.J. Stodolski, Inc. on Abebooks.com in 2011, and was still for sale on 23 April 2024. It is dated mistakenly there 1937/05/10.
H. Hardy states the letter was originally stolen from Berlin's room and was first for sale in 1980. An extract, announcing that BR is moving to Kidlington, is found in The Collection of ... R.E.D. Rawlins, Sotheby & Co., London, 2–4 June 1980.The letter carries the circular insignia of the Rawlins collection. The extract from the letter is noted in B&R J80.03. The letter was withdrawn from sale. Sotheby's again offered it for sale on 15 December 1992 and again misdated, this time 10 September 1957.
BR states he will accept an invitation to read a paper to the Oxford University Philosophical Society, if the topic is connected with his lectures. He did lecture to the Society on "Propositional Attitudes" on 13 February 1938.
Berlin's pocket diary for 19 Oct. 1937 has an entry "Tea Russell", which might have been at the Russells' new address or elsewhere in Oxford (information from Hardy). For a later meeting (tea at The Mitre) in Oxford, see Caroline Moorehead, Bertrand Russell: a Life (1992), p. 454.
BR TO ISAIAH BERLIN, 10 SEPT. 1937
BRACERS 58190. ALS(X). Formerly in I. Berlin papers
Proofread by K. Blackwell
<letterhead>
Telegraph House
Harting, Petersfield.
10.9.37
Dear Berlin
I am sorry I omitted to keep you up to date. The Chicago plan fell through, and I have no intention of leaving England; on the contrary, I have just bought a house at Kidlington, and shall be inhabiting it as soon as it is habitable. I accepted the invitation to lecture, after Xmas. I should enjoy reading a paper to the Philosophical Society if it could be on a topic connected with my lectures; I should hardly have time to prepare one on some other topic.
I shall be here till Sp. 29, and should be delighted if you would come for lunch and/or tea — I can’t ask any one to stay, as we are packing up and dismantling. I don’t know how soon I shall be at Kidlington, but probably about Oct. 10. I am afraid I am too busy to come to London, and my wife is busy at Oxford with plumbers, decorators, etc. So do come here for the day — any day, if you will phone to arrange it.
Yours sincerely
Bertrand Russell.
