BR TO W.W. NORTON & COMPANY, INC. / WARDER NORTON, 1 JUNE 1938
BRACERS 47224. ALS. Norton papers, Columbia U.
Proofread by K. Blackwell and A. Duncan

<letterhead>
Amberley House
Kidlington
Oxfordshire1
June 1, 1938

Dear Warder

Thank you for so promptly sending the typescript, which arrived today. I am glad to have it, as it would have delayed delivery if it had not come.

I feel I owe you a explanation of the perhaps apparently peremptory cable I sent you. I was touring the country speaking for peace, worried by the Czechoslovak crisis, feeling tired and hardly able to get the book done in time, and incapable of the thought required for a title that would please us both. My objection to “Power over Men” is that it suggests either a vamp or a spell-binder. In the contexts where the phrase occurs, it does not have this suggestion; but by itself it suggests to me a lovely female spy who is shot in the last chapter. The word “Power” with a sub-title was originally your suggestion, and appealed to me. The book is primarily scientific, and only secondarily concerned with practical issues, and I am anxious that serious people should take it seriously, which they won’t do if it seems just another anti-fascist tract. That is why I don’t like “Power unmasked” or “The Taming of Power”. I hate to have given you so much trouble.a

You will find that I have adopted most of your suggestions; in particular I have quite changed the beginning. I think the book is much more palatable than it was. I am also taking account of Frank Watts’s suggestions.  — Will send typescript in about 2 weeks.

Yours sincerely
Bertrand Russell

• 1

  [document] Proofread against a microfilm printout of the original.

Textual Notes

• a

  I hate … trouble. inserted