Letter from the Labour Research Department to Leonard Woolf (10/03/1925)

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[[MS 2750/536/2]]

 

[pre-printed letterhead] LABOUR RESEARCH DEPARTMENT 162 BUCKINGHAM PALACE RD. WESTMINSTER, LONDON S.W.1.

 

MIC/LCP.

 

L. Woolf, 
52, Tavistock Square, 
London, S. W. 1.

 

10. 3. [19]25.

 

Dear Woolf,

 

I am sorry to have kept you so long <before> giving an answer <about> “EMPIRE and COMMERCE in AFRICA”, but it has been necessary to get some figures from Allen and Unwin, who are joint publishers withourselves[sic]. I find that there are 550 in stock, and the sales for the last two years were : for 1923, 17; for 1924, 27. You will see then that the book is not selling at all well at present.

 

I have gone into the matter with my Committee who thought that the time has clearly come when the book should be remaindered at a much lower rate. Under the circumstances if they <sell> the whole edition to you they are prepared to charge only the remainder price viz. 2/- per copy for the whole edition. This would involve your[sic] making arrangements with Allen and Unwin, who also have copies, to sell them for a simultaneous reduction of price, but I do not think there would be any objection from their side. If on the other hand you will allow us to do the remaindering for you, we are prepared to give you – as stipulated

 

 

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Continued :

 

in our Agreement – fifty per cent of whatever price we receive. We think that it would be possible to dispose of the whole edition at a low price, but naturally we cannot enter into negotiations on this until we know whether you would rather take the whole edition yourself. I have been going also into the financial accounts of the whole publication and find that it has just, but only just, paid the costs of publication.

 

Yours sincerely, | R Page Arnot [signature] | Secretary.

Rights Statement:

Reproduced with permission from the copyright holder, courtesy of Penguin Random House UK Archive and Library owner of the Hogarth Press collection at the University of Reading Special Collections.

This item has not been made available with a CC BY-NC-ND licence

Source: MS 2750/536/2

Image Rights Holder: © Labour Research Department

Letter from the Labour Research Department to Leonard Woolf (10/03/1925)

Library:

University of Reading, Special Collections

R. Page Arnot explains the cost and logistics of selling Leonard Woolf the unsold copies of his Empire and Commerce in Africa, which otherwise should be remaindered. Typescript letter signed by Arnot