Letter from Leonard Woolf to Margaret Llewelyn Davies (08/01/1931)

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[[MS 2750/62/8]]

 

Miss M.Llewellyn [sic] Davies, 
26, Well Walk, 
Hampstead. N.W.

 

January 8th. 1931.

 

Dear Margaret,

 

DAVIES: LIFE AS WE HAVE KNOWN IT.

 

I have had an awful business with the C.W.S. as regards the printing of the book, which accounts for the delay. They seem to me quite incompetent; I wrote and asked them whether they had Caslon Old Face or Baskerville, and whether they could give me an estimate. They replied that they had not Baskerville but had Caslon, and would give me an estimate. I then wrote a long letter to them , telling them exactly what I wanted in the way of an estimate in detail. They sent me as estimate, but said they had made a mistake and had no Caslon Old Face type. Their estimate made the book 304 pages,,which seems to me absolutely grotesque. I got the MS[Manuscript] back and sent it to the Garden City Press, with a letter exactly word for word like the one that I had sent to the C.W.S. asking for an estimate. I am sending you a comparison of the two estimates, from which you will see that the C.W.S. for

 

 

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1500 copies costs £62 more than the Garden City Press, and £64 for 2000 copies. I propose therefore to send the book th [sic] the Garden City Press.

 

I have been through the accountsand I find that we could print 2000 copies and publish at 5/-, provided that the Guild would take a special edition, bound in paper,of 500 copies to be sold at 2/6 to their members only. We would, of course, give 33 % discount to them. Would this be possible? I gathered from Lilian that she thought that <it> would, so I am enclosing an agreement in duplicate for you to sign if you approve.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

P.S.

 

In the statement you must ignore everything below the estimate of expenditure. The figures at the foot are a working out of the total expenditure and receipts of the various numbers of copies sold, and really only be understood by <inhabitants> of the Hogarth Press.

Rights Statement:

Reproduced with permission from Penguin Random House UK Archive and Library owner of the Hogarth Press archive collection, held by the University of Reading Special Collections. With thanks to the Society of Authors This item has not been made available with a CC BY-NC-ND licence. Please see the terms of use page for further information.

Source: MS 2750/62/8

Letter from Leonard Woolf to Margaret Llewelyn Davies (08/01/1931)

Library:

University of Reading, Special Collections

Woolf narrates difficulties with obtaining estimate from the Cooperative Wholesale Society and indicates that the Garden City Press can print the same copies as the CWS, with the desired fonts, for £62 less at 1,500 copies and £64 less for 2,000 copies. Woolf thus proposes to send the book to the Garden City Press. Woolf agrees, additionally, to print 2,000 copies and publish at 5s provided that the Woman's Co-operative Guild takes a special edition of 500 copies to be sold at 2/6 with a 33% discount.

 

 

Typescript letter unisgned