BR TO GILBERT MURRAY, 5 NOV. 1936
BRACERS 52393. ALS. Murray papers, Bodleian
Edited by W. Bruneau. Proofread by A.G. Bone

<letterhead>
Telegraph House
Harting, Petersfield.
5 November 1936.

Dear Gilbert

This is going to be the sort of letter of which you must now-a-days get many; but the times make such letters unavoidable.

You may have noticed a recent book, out to-day,a Japan’s Feet of Clay, by Freda Utley. She is an English woman married to a Russian, who was on a trade mission in Tokyo, and afterwards in Moscow, where she also had a job. She came to England to see after the publication of her book, and since she has been here her husband has fallen an innocent victim to the recent “purge”. He is now in a concentration camp in the Arctic; she would like to go back to Russia to see if she could do anything for him, but all her friendsb advisec her not to do so. She has, of course, lost her job in Moscow, and is penniless. The problem is to find her a means of livelihood.

She is a very able economist. Her thesis was on guilds in the later Roman Empire, but her subsequent studies have been more contemporary. Her knowledge of Japan is immense, as you can see from her book, which the publishers are sending you. Her French and German are very good. She could lecture or teach or do research work. She is quiet and very modest, very unhappy about her husband (to whom she is devoted) and in every way worthy of help. Her husband is only accused of having known two men whom the Soviet Government does not altogether like.

Do you know of any possible opening for her?

Yours ever
B.R.

Textual Notes

• a

  out to-day inserted

• b

  all her friends inserted above deleted indecipherable word or name

• c

  advise replaced advises