Letter from Hope Mirrlees to John Lehmann (14/5/1944)

[[1]]

 

[[MS 2750/7/38]]

 

What are the royalty terms?

What has [1-word illeg.]  by BH*1.? - 50/50 was suggested

 

[pre-printed letterhead] STATION, BRAMLEY, TELEPHONE:BRAMLEY 3338. SHAMLEY WOOD, SHAMLEY GREEN. GUILDFORD

 

 

May 14 1944

Dear Mr Lehmann -

 

I have had another letter in reply to mine of April 19th from, presumably, another member of your firm. But I cannot decipher the signature, so I am addressing this to you. Will you please convey my apologies to the other gentlemen. His letter states that you are in the same position as myself, & cannot refer to the Agreement between Miss Harrison*2 myself on the one hand & yourselves on the other, for the publication of The Life of the Archpriest

[[2]]

Avvakum. As none of us has any recollection of the terms of this Agreement governing American or foreign rights, & as it is quite possible that there was no clause governing such publication abroad, I should suggest that we determine the matter according to whatever usage prevails in contracts between author & publisher in this country at the present times: In this instance I understand that there is no royalty offer involved, but that the proposed is for an outright payment for anthology use, A division of this fee, of 20 % to yourselves - 80 % to be divided equally between myself & the executors of the late Jane Harrison, seems to me <e>quable

Yours very truly - | Hope Mirrlees [signature]

Rights Statement:

Reproduced with permission from the estate of the author, courtesy of Penguin Random House UK archive and library. This item has not been made available with a CC BY-NC-ND licence.

Source: MS 2750/7/38

Image Rights Holder: © Estate of Hope Mirrlees

Letter from Hope Mirrlees to John Lehmann (14/5/1944)

Author:

Library:

University of Reading, Special Collections

Mirrlees states that as neither party can recall nor access the original agreement regarding American or foreign rights, they should proceed with Sheed and Ward on an 80/20 split basis.

Handwritten letter signed by Mirrlees