[[1]]

[[MS 2750/153/5]]

John Hampson Simpson Esq 
Four Ashes, 
Dorridge, Birmingham

30 July, 1930

Dear Mr Simpson,

SIMPSON: SATURDAY NIGHT

Many thanks for your letter.  My wife and I both think that O PROVIDENCE IS is really much the better book, though there are considerable merits in SATURDAY NIGHT.  From the business point of view, we do not think that either is likely to sell very well, and O PROVIDENCE has much less chance than the other.  Indeed, if it were published as your first novel, it might quite easily be a complete failure.  We feel therefore that it would be more sensible to publish SATURDAY NIGHT first, which might attract some attention and so give O PROVIDENCE a better chance.  What we suggest is that we should publish SATURDAY NIGHT in the early spring, paying you a royalty of 10 per cent on the first 2000 copies sold and 15 per cent above that number, and that you give us an option of [illegible characters crossed out] accepting the other book on the same terms, the option to last for 12 months from the date of publication of SATURDAY NIGHT.  If we take up the option and accept O PROVIDENCE, we will undertake to publish it within 6 months of signing the agreement.

Yours sincerely | Leonard Woolf [signature]

[*Posted by me*] 
[*file*] 
[*LSW 30/7*]